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Anchovy Butter

Anchovy butter is a smooth butter flavored with anchovies and cayenne pepper.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,697 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Anchovy Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the anchovy paste

  1. Wash and bone the anchovies.

  2. Pound the anchovies in a mortar until smooth.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve.

Finish the butter

  1. Mix the anchovy paste with the butter until smooth.

  2. Add cayenne pepper to taste and use as required.

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. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  2. Anchovy + peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  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

Butter
Forms the creamy base that carries the anchovy flavour and spreads smoothly.
Anchovies
Provide the salty, savoury umami flavour that defines the butter.

The step that matters

Rubbing the mixture through a fine sieve. Pounding alone leaves fibres and lumps in the anchovy. Pressing it through a fine sieve breaks them down further, so the paste blends into the butter smoothly without gritty pieces.

“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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