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Devilled Biscuits

Spiced biscuits topped with a seasoned anchovy butter mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 14 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Devilled Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the spice mix

  1. Mix the curry powder, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, ginger, nutmeg, grated lemon peel, allspice, and black pepper in a bowl.

Prepare the biscuits

  1. Toast the biscuits and butter them while hot.

  2. Sprinkle cayenne pepper and a little coarse sea salt over the buttered biscuits.

Make the anchovy topping and serve

  1. Bone and wash the anchovies, then pound them with butter in a mortar.

  2. Season the anchovy mixture with the spice mix and spread it on a biscuit fried in 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. Nutmeg + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

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

  5. Biscuit + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide a salty, savory base that gives the topping its main flavor.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, carrying flavor and helping the topping spread smoothly.
Biscuits
Serve as the crisp base that holds the topping.
Curry powder
Adds warm, aromatic spice flavor to the spice mix.

The step that matters

Pounding the anchovies with butter. Anchovies must be thoroughly boned and washed first, since bones and grit ruin texture, and pounding them into butter creates a smooth, evenly seasoned paste that spreads well.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, butter, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, lemon, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, butter, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, lemon, allspice. 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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