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Strong Beer with Anchovies

A strong beer infused with anchovies, garlic, nutmeg, cloves, black pepper, and mace, simmered and strained.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and clove match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 8,686 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Strong Beer with Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

  1. Combine the strong beer and anchovies in a pot.

  2. Add the garlic, nutmeg, cloves, black pepper, and mace.

  3. Simmer the mixture for one hour.

  4. Strain and serve.

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. Nutmeg + clovetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together8,686 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  3. Clove + peppertop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together17,451 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

  4. Clove + macetop 6% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together8,400 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 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
Dissolve into the beer to build a deep, salty, savory backbone for the sauce.
Strong beer
Serves as the liquid base, carrying and extracting flavor from the other ingredients.
Garlic
Adds pungent aroma that mellows and sweetens as it simmers in the liquid.
Nutmeg
Contributes warm, aromatic spice notes that carry through the simmered liquid.
Cloves
Adds intense, warm aromatic spice that stands out in the simmered liquid.
Mace
Adds a delicate, warm spice aroma related to nutmeg, extracted during simmering.

The step that matters

Simmer the mixture for one hour. A gentle simmer extracts flavor from the spices and garlic without boiling off too much liquid or turning harsh. Strong spices like cloves can turn bitter if overcooked, so keep the heat steady and low.

Swap the garlic

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (beer, nutmeg, clove, pepper, mace):

  1. Allspicefits better
  2. Cinnamonfits better
  3. Marjoramfits better
  4. Garlicthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against beer, nutmeg, clove, pepper, mace. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“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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