Name: Curried Toasts Witu Anchovies
Ingredients: 4 slices of bread, crusts removed, ½ inch thick and 2½ inches square; 2 tablespoons good butter or pure olive oil; Captain White’s curry paste; 6-9 fillets of anchovies; Cayenne pepper (optional)

Why it works: Bread and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 27,232 recipes. Both carry delta-decalactone, which smells sweet, creamy. The science ↓

Curried Toasts Witu Anchovies

Oven, in the book's wordsA gentle oven

Ingredients

4 slices of bread, crusts removed, ½ inch thick and 2½ inches square
2 tablespoons good butter or pure olive oil
Captain White’s curry paste
6-9 fillets of anchovies
Cayenne pepper (optional)

Directions

The book says “a gentle oven”. The 350°F (175°C) in the steps is the modern equivalent, not the book's own figure.

Fry the bread

Fry the bread slices in butter or olive oil until lightly golden.

Top and bake

Place the fried bread on a dish and spread a thin layer of curry paste on top.
Put the bread in a 350°F (175°C) oven for 3-4 minutes.
Lay 2-3 fillets of anchovies on each slice and return to the oven for 2 minutes.

Serve

Serve immediately, adding cayenne pepper for extra heat if desired.

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.

Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together27,232 recipes

Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).
Bread + peppertop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together20,964 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked 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

Bread: Forms the crisp base that holds the curry paste and anchovies.
Butter or olive oil: Fat that browns the bread surface and adds rich flavour.
Curry paste: Provides the spiced flavour that bakes into the toast.
Anchovies: Adds salty, savoury depth that stands out against the curry.

“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.