Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓
Anchovy Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Bone and skin the anchovies, then chop them very fine.
In a pan, combine the chopped anchovies with a little gravy.
Add the butter and flour, shaking the pan over the heat until thickened to the consistency of melted 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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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Anchovies
- Dissolve into the sauce to give it a salty, savoury depth of flavour.
- Butter
- Adds richness and fat, and melts into a smooth sauce body.
- Flour
- Thickens the sauce as it heats with the butter and gravy.
The step that matters
Thickening with butter and flour. Shaking the pan over heat keeps the flour and butter moving so they blend evenly. Stopping at the consistency of melted butter prevents the sauce from becoming pasty or too thick.
“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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