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Curried Toasts with Anchovies

A toasted bread topped with curry paste and anchovy fillets, baked briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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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 ↓

Curried Toasts with Anchovies

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Fry the bread

  1. Fry the bread slices lightly in butter or olive oil until golden.

Top and bake

  1. Place the fried bread on a dish and spread a thin layer of curry paste on top.

  2. Put the bread in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 3-4 minutes.

  3. Lay 2-3 fillets of anchovies on each slice and return to the oven for 2 minutes.

Serve

  1. Serve immediately, adding cayenne pepper for extra heat if desired.

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

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

  2. Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Bread
Forms the crisp base that holds the curry paste and anchovies.
Butter or olive oil
Fat that fries the bread, adding browning and rich flavour.
Curry paste
Supplies the spiced flavour that sits on top of the toast.
Anchovies
Provide a salty, savoury flavour that stands out against the curry.

The step that matters

Frying the bread until golden. Frying in fat browns the surface through the Maillard reaction, giving flavour and a crisp base. Pale bread stays soft and will not hold the toppings well.

“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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