Why it works: Pepper and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 21% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 85,593 recipes. Both carry trans-2-nonenal, which smells cardboard, fatty. The science ↓
Anchovy Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Pound the anchovies in a mortar until they form a pulp.
Add a little water to the mortar and shake it.
Transfer the pulp to a saucepan and stew over low heat.
Add Cayenne pepper and rub the mixture through a fine sieve.
Mix with melted butter until smooth.
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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Pepper + buttertop 21% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together85,593 recipes
Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Anchovies
- Break down into a pulp that gives the sauce its salty, savory backbone.
- Melted butter
- Adds fat and richness, giving the sauce a smooth, silky texture.
- Cayenne pepper
- Adds gentle heat and a sharp aroma that cuts through the richness.
The step that matters
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the cooked pulp through a fine sieve removes fibrous and lumpy bits, so the sauce turns smooth before the butter is added.
“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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