Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓
To Fillet Anchovies
Ingredients
Directions
Drain the anchovies well from the pickle.
Remove the heads and fins, and lay them separately on a plate.
Scrape off the skin entirely.
Place the anchovies on a clean dish.
With a sharp knife, raise the flesh on either side of the backbone from the tail to the shoulders, keeping it nearly flat.
Divide each fillet in two.
Use the fillets for sandwiches with slices of bread and butter, or prepare them as anchovy butter.
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.
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Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together27,232 recipes
Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
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