Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓
A Breakfast Dish
Ingredients
Directions
Make the shrimp sauce
Pick the shrimps and place them in a saucepan with the milk, pepper, salt, and enough anchovy sauce to achieve a deep pink color.
Bring the mixture to a boil and thicken it with flour.
Assemble and serve
Prepare some well-boiled rice and form a wall of it in a dish.
Pour the shrimp mixture into the center of the rice wall.
Grate some brown crusts over the top and serve very hot.
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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Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together2,057 recipes
Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
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Milk + ricetop 7% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together7,374 recipes
Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
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Shrimp + anchovytop 10% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together440 recipes
Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
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Shrimp + ricetop 11% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together1,055 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-methylbutanol (malty, whiskey).
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Pepper + ricetop 12% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together8,379 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
- Shrimps
- Provide the main protein and flavor of the dish.
- Milk
- Forms the creamy liquid base that carries the shrimp flavor.
- Flour
- Thickens the milk mixture into a sauce.
- Anchovy sauce
- Adds savory depth and gives the shrimp a deep pink color.
The step that matters
Thickening the sauce with flour. Flour must be cooked after the mixture boils so its starch swells and thickens the sauce smoothly. Adding it to cold liquid or without enough heat can leave lumps or a raw, pasty taste.
“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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