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Anchovy Macaroni

Anchovy macaroni is a pasta dish with anchovies, butter, eggs, bread crumbs, and seasoning, baked briefly.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and bread 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 ↓

Anchovy Macaroni

one china case per person

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the macaroni

  1. Boil the macaroni until tender, using fish stock if convenient.

  2. Cut the macaroni into half‑inch lengths.

Make the anchovy mixture

  1. Soak the anchovies in milk for an hour, then wash, bone, and sieve them.

  2. Mix the sieved anchovies with the butter and seasoning, adding Parmesan or chopped parsley if desired.

  3. Boil the eggs hard.

  4. Pound the yolks with the anchovies or cut them into dice.

Bake and serve

  1. Combine all ingredients and place in small hot china cases, one for each person.

  2. Sprinkle with fried crumbs and set in the oven for a minute before serving hot.

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

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

  2. Egg + breadtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Butter + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the main salty, savoury flavour that defines the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and moisture, carrying the anchovy flavour through the mixture.
Eggs
Hard-boiled yolks add body and a rich, crumbly texture to the mixture.
Macaroni
Forms the bulk of the dish, giving chewy pasta texture under the savoury topping.
Bread
Fried crumbs add a crisp, golden topping that contrasts with the soft filling.

The step that matters

Soaking the anchovies in milk. Soaking draws out excess salt and mellows the sharp, strong fish flavour, so the anchovies taste savoury rather than harsh. Skipping or shortening the soak can make the dish overly salty.

“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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