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Anchovy Toast

A toast topped with a sautéed anchovy, shallot, parsley, and egg yolk mixture.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,737 recipes. Both carry 2,4-decadienal, which smells seaweed. The science ↓

Anchovy Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

  1. Wash the anchovies and remove the bones.

  2. Coarsely chop the anchovies.

Make the topping

  1. Heat the butter in a small saucepan.

  2. Fry the shallot until lightly browned.

  3. Add the anchovies, parsley, and egg yolk to the pan, and season with cayenne pepper.

  4. Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens.

Serve

  1. Pour the mixture over well-buttered toast and serve hot.

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. Shallot + parsleytop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,737 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  2. Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together34,122 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Shallot + peppertop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together5,898 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  4. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  5. Butter + shallottop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,426 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the main salty, savoury flavour that defines the dish.
Egg yolk
Thickens the mixture as it heats, giving it a creamy, spreadable texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the shallot brown and carrying flavour.
Shallot
Adds mild aromatic sweetness and depth when fried until lightly browned.

The step that matters

Stir the mixture over low heat until it thickens. Egg yolk thickens by gentle heat. If the heat is too high, the yolk can scramble into lumps instead of forming a smooth, creamy topping.

Swap the shallot

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

  1. Shallotthe original
  2. Chivefits about as well
  3. Carrotfits about as well
  4. Capsicumfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, egg, parsley, pepper. 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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