Name: Anchovy Toast
Ingredients: 1 egg; anchovy paste; buttered toast

Why it works: Egg and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,330 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓

Anchovy Toast

Ingredients

1 egg
anchovy paste
buttered toast

Directions

Prepare

Poach the egg in simmering water until the white is set and the yolk is still runny.
Spread anchovy paste on a slice of buttered toast.

Assemble and serve

Top the toast with the poached egg and serve immediately.

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.

Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Egg: Its set white and runny yolk form a rich, creamy topping that moistens the toast.
Anchovy paste: Adds a salty, savoury umami punch that contrasts with the rich egg.
Buttered toast: Provides a crisp, fatty base that holds the egg and softens slightly under the yolk.

The step that matters

Poaching the egg. Simmering water must be gentle enough to keep the white together while the yolk stays runny. Proteins in the white set at around 60 to 70 °C, while the yolk thickens at higher temperatures, so a rolling boil can break the egg apart and overcook the yolk.

“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.