Skip to main content
Main

Anchovy Butter

Anchovy butter is a seasoned butter made with anchovies, butter, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, mace, and optional rose pink.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Anchovy Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

  1. Remove the skin from the anchovies and free the flesh from the bones.

  2. Pound the anchovy flesh in a mortar until smooth.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve with a wooden spoon.

Make the butter

  1. In the cleaned mortar, combine the anchovies with the butter, cayenne, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Beat the mixture until thoroughly blended.

  3. If desired, add a small amount of rose pink for color, mixing it well.

Serve

  1. For serving cold, mold the butter into small shapes and turn them out.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  3. Mace + rosetop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together498 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  4. Nutmeg + rosetop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,067 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

  5. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Anchovies
Provide the salty, savory flavor that defines the butter.
Butter
Forms the creamy base that carries the flavorings and sets firm when cold.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor.
Nutmeg
Adds a warm, aromatic spice flavor.

The step that matters

Rubbing the anchovies through a sieve. Pushing the pounded flesh through a fine sieve removes remaining fibres and small bones, so the butter spreads smoothly without gritty or stringy bits.

Swap the mace

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

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Cardamomfits better
  3. Allspicefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg, rose. 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.

More anchovy butter recipes

Sauce 8Broccoli with Sauce 3 See all 84 →

You might also like

Rose Waska Potato SaladRose Waska Potato Salad7 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes