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Olives Farced with Anchovies

Olives stuffed with anchovy paste, served on croutons and garnished with tarragon and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Lemon and tarragon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,137 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Olives Farced with Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Wash and bone the anchovies.

  2. Pound the anchovy flesh in a mortar with a few drops of lemon juice and a dust of cayenne pepper until smooth.

  3. Rub the paste through a fine sieve.

Assemble and serve

  1. Stuff the olives with the anchovy paste.

  2. Serve the stuffed olives on croutons of bread, garnished with tarragon and a little butter.

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. Lemon + tarragontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,137 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Lemon + peppertop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  3. Pepper + tarragontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,399 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

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

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

  5. Olive + lemontop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,922 recipes

    Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

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 flavour that defines the filling.
Olives
Hold the anchovy paste and add a briny contrast to its richness.
Bread croutons
Act as a crisp base that supports the stuffed olives when served.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth finish to the presentation.

The step that matters

Rubbing the paste through a fine sieve. Pounding alone can leave fibres and lumps in the anchovy. Pressing the paste through a fine sieve makes it smooth, so it fills the olives evenly and feels silky rather than gritty.

Swap the tarragon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (olive, bread, butter, lemon, pepper):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Sagefits about as well
  4. Tarragonthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against olive, bread, butter, lemon, pepper. 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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