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Sardine Toast

A toasted bread topping made from sardines, butter, anchovy essence, herbs, capers, milk, eggs, and lemon juice.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 11 ingredients
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Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Sardine Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. In a bowl, combine sardines, butter, anchovy essence, parsley, gherkin, capers, milk or cream, egg yolks, egg white, and lemon juice or vinegar.

  2. Pound the mixture to a smooth paste and add cayenne pepper to taste.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the mixture on the toasted bread triangles.

  2. Garnish with cress or other salad before serving.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

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

  2. Parsley + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,550 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  3. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Butter + breadtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: delta-decalactone (sweet, creamy).

  5. Butter + milktop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

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

What each ingredient does

Sardines
Provide the main savoury fish flavour and the body of the paste.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the paste smooth and rich in texture.
Hard-boiled egg yolks
Add creaminess and richness, helping bind the paste together.
Egg white
Adds moisture and body to the paste.
Lemon juice or white vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the rich fish and butter.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture to a smooth paste. Thorough pounding breaks the sardines and yolks into a uniform emulsion-like paste. Lumps left behind give an uneven texture and spread poorly on the toast.

Swap the capers

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, anchovy, parsley, milk, egg, lemon, bread):

  1. Capersthe original
  2. Thymefits about as well
  3. Nutmegfits about as well
  4. Marjoramfits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, anchovy, parsley, milk, egg, lemon, bread. 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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