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Anchovy Butter

Anchovy butter is a spread made from anchovies, egg yolks, butter, cayenne pepper, and salt, served on bread.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the anchovy paste

  1. Pound the anchovies in a mortar with the egg yolks until smooth.

  2. Add enough butter to moisten the mixture and a pinch of cayenne pepper.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread half of the bread slices with the anchovy mixture.

  2. Cover with the remaining bread slices and press them together.

  3. Trim the edges neatly and cut into triangles or desired shapes.

  4. Serve on a folded napkin or lace paper, garnished with watercress or parsley.

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. Pepper + watercresstop 10% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together983 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

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

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

  4. Bread + watercresstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  5. Pepper + breadtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together20,964 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the salty, savoury flavour that defines the spread.
Egg yolks
Bind the pounded anchovies into a smooth, spreadable paste.
Butter
Adds fat and moisture so the mixture spreads easily and softens the bread.

The step that matters

Pound the anchovies with the egg yolks until smooth. Breaking the anchovies down finely lets the yolks emulsify with them into an even paste. Unpounded pieces leave gritty bites and an uneven texture that is hard to spread.

“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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