Why it works: Sauce and ketchup match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,099 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
Sardine Canapes
Ingredients
Directions
Prepare
Bone, skin, and mince the sardines.
Mix the sardines with butter, eggs, pepper, flour, Worcestershire sauce, ketchup, and anchovy sauce.
Cook and serve
Cook the mixture over low heat until it thickens.
Serve on rounds of toast or fried bread.
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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Sauce + ketchuptop 1% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together1,099 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
-
Ketchup + anchovytop 2% of all pairsSmell alikestrongCooked together479 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairsSmell alikelowCooked together124,287 recipes
Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
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Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,330 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter and flour 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
- Sardines
- Provide the main fish flavor and the bulk of the spread.
- Eggs
- Set and thicken the mixture as it cooks, giving it a creamy body.
- Butter
- Adds richness and moisture, softening the texture of the spread.
- Flour
- Helps thicken the mixture so it holds together on the toast.
The step that matters
Cooking over low heat until it thickens. Eggs set at high heat and can curdle or turn grainy. Gentle heat lets the mixture thicken smoothly into a spread.
“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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