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Sauce

Essence of Anchovies for Steaks, Etc.

A sauce made from anchovies, capers, shallots, thyme, bay leaf, mace, pepper, mushroom catsup, consomme, glaze, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Essence of Anchovies for Steaks, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Clean the anchovies and pound them in a mortar with capers and shallots.

  2. Place the mixture in a small saucepan with thyme, bay leaf, mace, minionette pepper, and mushroom catsup.

Simmer and reduce

  1. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.

  2. Moisten with consomme.

  3. Boil until reduced to half its original quantity.

Strain and finish

  1. Strain through a tammy into a small saucepan.

  2. Finish by adding a small piece of glaze and a little lemon juice.

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. Capers + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Pepper + lemontop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together27,047 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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, savory flavour that defines the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that brightens the sauce.
Shallots
Contribute mild aromatic sweetness as they soften into the base.
Mushroom catsup
Adds deep savory, umami flavour and colour to the sauce.
Consomme
Adds liquid and meaty savoury depth to the reduction.
Glaze
Adds concentrated savoury body and gloss to the finished sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced to half its original quantity. Reducing by boiling concentrates flavour and thickens the sauce. Boiling too gently or too briefly leaves it thin and weak, while over-reducing can make it overly salty, since anchovies and catsup intensify as water evaporates.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (capers, shallot, thyme, pepper, mushroom, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against capers, shallot, thyme, pepper, mushroom, lemon. 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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