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Devilled Biscuit

A biscuit topped with a spiced anchovy mixture and butter.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 15 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and allspice match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,331 recipes. Both carry estragole, which smells anise, licorice. The science ↓

Devilled Biscuit

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the biscuit

  1. Toast the biscuit until golden.

  2. Butter the biscuit while hot.

  3. Sprinkle cayenne pepper and coarse sea salt over the buttered biscuit.

Make the spice and anchovy paste

  1. In a bowl, mix curry powder, mustard, salt, cayenne pepper, ginger, nutmeg, grated lemon peel, allspice, and black pepper.

  2. Bone and wash the anchovies.

  3. Pound the anchovies with butter in a mortar.

  4. Season the anchovy mixture with the spice blend.

Assemble and fry

  1. Spread the seasoned anchovy mixture on a biscuit.

  2. Fry the biscuit in butter.

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 + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,331 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  2. Ginger + allspicetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together2,620 recipes

    Shared aroma: estragole (anise, licorice).

  3. Mustard + allspicetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,928 recipes

    Shared aroma: methyleugenol (clove, spice).

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

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

  5. Biscuit + mustardtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together121 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide a salty, savoury depth that forms the main flavour of the spread.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, and helps bind the anchovies into a smooth paste.
Biscuit
Serves as the crisp base that carries the spread.
Mustard
Adds sharp, pungent heat that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Cayenne pepper
Adds pungent heat to the spice blend and the biscuit surface.
Lemon peel
Adds bright aromatic oil that lifts the rich anchovy and butter flavours.

Swap the ginger

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, butter, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, lemon, allspice):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Thymefits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Gingerthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, butter, pepper, mustard, nutmeg, lemon, allspice. 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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