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Anchovy Sauce

A sauce made with butter, flour, milk, fish stock, and anchovy essence.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Milk and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 7% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 81,283 recipes. Both carry (z)-4-heptenal, which smells biscuit, cream. The science ↓

Anchovy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Make the sauce

  1. Melt the butter in a saucepan over medium heat.

  2. Stir in the flour and cook for 5 to 6 minutes.

  3. Add the milk and fish stock, stirring until it boils.

  4. Simmer for 2 to 3 minutes, then add the anchovy essence.

Finish

  1. Use as required.

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. Milk + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together81,283 recipes

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

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

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

  4. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

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

What each ingredient does

Butter
Fat that carries flavour and forms the base of the roux with the flour.
Flour
Starch that thickens the liquid into a smooth sauce as it cooks.
Milk
Liquid that gives the sauce its body, creaminess and mild sweetness.
Fish stock
Liquid that adds savoury depth to the sauce.
Anchovy essence
Concentrated flavouring that gives the sauce its salty, savoury taste.

The step that matters

Adding the milk and stock. Add the liquid gradually while stirring so the starch disperses evenly. Adding it all at once or stirring poorly can leave lumps in the sauce.

“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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