Name: Anchovy and Egg Sandwiches
Ingredients: 10 anchovies; 3 hard-boiled egg yolks; 2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese; butter (as needed); cayenne pepper (to taste); white or brown bread; curry butter (made with 4 oz fresh butter, 1 heaped teaspoon curry powder, ½ teaspoon lemon juice, and salt to taste)

Why it works: Pepper and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,047 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓

Anchovy and Egg Sandwiches

Ingredients

10 anchovies
3 hard-boiled egg yolks
2 tablespoons grated Parmesan cheese
butter (as needed)
cayenne pepper (to taste)
white or brown bread
curry butter (made with 4 oz fresh butter, 1 heaped teaspoon curry powder, ½ teaspoon lemon juice, and salt to taste)

Directions

Prepare the filling

Wash and bone the anchovies.
Pound the anchovies in a mortar with the egg yolks, Parmesan cheese, enough butter to moisten, and a little cayenne.
Prepare thin slices of bread.
Prepare curry butter.

Assemble and serve

Spread half the bread slices with the anchovy mixture.
Cover with the remaining slices.
Press together.
Trim the edges neatly and cut into triangles or preferred shapes.
Arrange on a folded napkin or lace paper.
Garnish with watercress or parsley.

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.

Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together27,047 recipes

Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Parmesan cheese + buttertop 9% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together4,163 recipes

Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).
Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Parmesan cheese + peppertop 14% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together5,322 recipes

Shared aroma: ethyl 2-methylbutyrate (fruity, apple).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies: Provide the salty, savory flavor that defines the filling.
Hard-boiled egg yolks: Add richness and a soft, creamy body to the pounded filling.
Parmesan cheese: Adds savory, salty depth and helps the filling hold together.
Butter: Moistens the pounded mixture and adds fat for a smooth, spreadable texture.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (egg, parmesan cheese, butter, pepper, bread):

Lemonthe original
Plumfits about as well
Figfits less well
Grapefits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, parmesan cheese, butter, pepper, bread. 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.