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Anchovy Toast

Anchovy toast is a bread toast topped with a sauce made from anchovy pulp and egg yolks.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Anchovy Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

  1. Remove oil from anchovies, split them open, and remove the spines.

  2. Pass the fish through a fine sieve and place the pulp in a bowl.

  3. Stir in the yolks of 2 raw eggs.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 1 tablespoon of butter in a saucepan over low heat.

  2. Stir in the anchovy pulp and egg mixture, letting it thicken and heat.

Fry and serve

  1. Fry the bread slices in butter until golden, then drain and dry them.

  2. Spread the mixture over the toasts and serve immediately.

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.

  1. Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  3. Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,260 recipes

    Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).

  4. Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the salty, savory flavor that defines the dish.
Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce as they heat and give it a rich, smooth texture.
Bread
Forms the crisp, golden base that holds the topping.
Butter
Adds richness and browns the bread while frying.

The step that matters

Thickening the anchovy and egg mixture over low heat. Egg yolks set when heated, so over high heat they can scramble or curdle. Gentle low heat lets the mixture thicken smoothly into a spreadable sauce.

“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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