Name: Anchovy Biscuits
Ingredients: 12 small plain biscuits; 6 boned anchovies; ½ pint whipped cream; 2 teaspoons chopped parsley; 2 teaspoons anchovy paste; 1 teaspoon coralline pepper; 1 hard boiled egg yolk

Why it works: Parsley and pepper match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 34,122 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Anchovy Biscuits

Ingredients

Directions

Spread a thin layer of anchovy paste over the biscuits.
Season the whipped cream and pile it on top of the biscuits.
Garnish with strips of anchovy, chopped parsley, coralline pepper, and the hard boiled yolk rubbed through a sieve.

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.

Parsley + peppertop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together34,122 recipes

Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).
Biscuit + parsleytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikestrong

Cooked together204 recipes

Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).
Biscuit + peppertop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together841 recipes

Shared aroma: nonanal (fat, citrus).
Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Parsley + anchovytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,702 recipes

Shared aroma: linalool (floral, citrus).

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

What each ingredient does

Plain biscuits: Provide a crisp, neutral base that carries the toppings.
Whipped cream: Adds a soft, rich layer that mellows the salty anchovy flavour.
Anchovies: Supply the salty, savoury flavour that defines the dish.
Anchovy paste: Spreads a concentrated anchovy flavour evenly over the biscuit base.

Swap the parsley

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (biscuit, cream, anchovy, pepper, egg):

Capersfits better
Nutmegfits better
Parsleythe original
Tarragonfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against biscuit, cream, anchovy, pepper, egg. 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.