Name: Essence of Anchovies
Ingredients: 10 to 12 anchovies, pickled for about a year; 2 tablespoons best vinegar, sherry wine, brandy, or mushroom catsup; 15 grains cayenne pepper

Why it works: Vinegar and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,814 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Essence of Anchovies

Ingredients

10 to 12 anchovies, pickled for about a year
2 tablespoons best vinegar, sherry wine, brandy, or mushroom catsup
15 grains cayenne pepper

Directions

Prepare

Pound the anchovies in a mortar to a pulp.
Place the pulp in a clean saucepan with the vinegar or chosen liquid.

Make the sauce

Set the saucepan over low heat, stirring frequently until the mixture melts, about 5 minutes.
Add the cayenne pepper and stir well.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve using the back of a wooden spoon.

Bottle

Bottle and cork securely with a new cork to prevent spoilage.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

Vinegar + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,814 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Anchovies: Provide the salty, savoury backbone of the sauce as they break down into a pulp.
Vinegar: Adds acidity that sharpens the flavour and helps keep the sauce bright.

The step that matters

Heating the mixture over low heat. Stirring gently over low heat lets the anchovies melt into the liquid evenly. Higher heat could scorch the pulp and give the sauce a bitter, burnt taste.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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Essence of Anchovies