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Anchovy Toast

A toasted bread dish topped with a creamy anchovy sauce.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce 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 toast

  1. Trim the crusts off the bread and cut each slice into three pieces.

  2. Fry the bread pieces in butter until pale golden brown and keep them hot.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter without boiling it.

  2. In a bowl, mix the egg yolks, anchovy sauce, a dust of cayenne, and cream or milk.

  3. Stir this mixture into the melted butter over moderate heat until it thickens like custard.

Serve

  1. Pour the sauce over the toast, garnish with parsley, 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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Pepper + parsleytop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

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

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

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

  4. Cream + buttertop 8% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,516 recipes

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

  5. Cream + saucetop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg yolks
Thicken the sauce into a custard-like texture as they gently set with heat.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury flavour that gives the dish its character.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, and helps the bread turn golden as it fries.
Cream or milk
Adds moisture and softness, loosening the sauce and mellowing its texture.

The step that matters

Stir the sauce over moderate heat until it thickens. Egg yolks set into a custard when heated gently. If the heat is too high or the mixture boils, the yolks can scramble and curdle, so the sauce turns grainy instead of smooth.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, cream, anchovy, sauce, butter, pepper):

  1. Capersfits about as well
  2. Parsleythe original
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Tarragonfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, cream, anchovy, sauce, butter, 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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