Why it works: Flour and butter 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 ↓
Anchovies, Fried
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare the batter
Wipe the anchovies with a dry cloth.
Sift the flour and mix it into a smooth batter with the water and salad oil. Whip the egg white until stiff and gently fold it into the batter.
Fry
Heat a deep pan of frying fat.
Dip the anchovies carefully into the batter and drop them into the hot fat. Fry until golden brown.
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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Flour + buttertop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Flour + eggtop 15% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together106,462 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together118,967 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Flour and butter 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
- Flour
- Forms the batter that coats the anchovies and crisps as it fries.
- Egg white
- Whipped to stiff peaks, it lightens the batter so the coating fries up airy and crisp.
- Salad oil or clarified butter
- Adds fat to the batter, helping it fry up tender and crisp rather than tough.
- Anchovies
- The main ingredient, whose savoury flavour is the centre of the dish.
The step that matters
Drop the anchovies into the hot fat. If the fat is not hot enough, the batter absorbs oil and becomes greasy instead of crisp. Dipping carefully keeps the coating intact so it sets quickly when it meets the hot fat.
“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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