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Essence of Anchovies for Steaks, Etc.

A savory anchovy-based sauce for steaks and other dishes.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and shallot match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Essence of Anchovies for Steaks, Etc.

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the base

  1. Wash and clean the anchovies.

  2. Pound the anchovies with capers and shallots in a mortar.

  3. Place the mixture in a small saucepan with thyme, bay leaf, mace, mignonette pepper, and mushroom catsup.

  4. Simmer gently for 5 minutes.

Reduce and finish

  1. Moisten with consommé and boil until reduced by half.

  2. Strain through a tammy into a small saucepan.

  3. Finish by adding glaze and lemon juice.

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. Capers + shallottop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Thyme + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together3,973 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  3. Shallot + thymetop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,476 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

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

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

  5. Thyme + peppertop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together11,585 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

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 backbone that deepens the sauce's flavour.
Capers
Add sharp, briny acidity that brightens the rich sauce.
Shallots
Contribute mild sweetness and aromatic depth when pounded into the base.
Mushroom catsup
Adds umami and dark, savoury depth to the sauce.
Consommé
Adds liquid and concentrated meaty flavour, which reduces to intensify the sauce.

The step that matters

Boil until reduced by half. Reducing the consommé concentrates its flavour and thickens the liquid. Under-reducing leaves the sauce thin and weak, while over-reducing can make it too salty because the anchovies and glaze keep their seasoning as water evaporates.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (capers, shallot, thyme, pepper, mushroom, lemon):

  1. Parsleyfits better
  2. Marjoramfits better
  3. Tarragonfits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against capers, shallot, thyme, pepper, mushroom, lemon. 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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