Skip to main content
Main

Anchovy Butter

A spread made from pounded anchovies, butter, mace, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Mace and nutmeg are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Anchovy Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Make the butter

  1. In a bowl, combine the pounded anchovies and softened butter.

  2. Add mace, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg.

  3. Mix well until all ingredients are fully incorporated.

Adjust and serve

  1. Adjust the amount of butter to control the anchovy flavor.

  2. Serve as a spread or condiment.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Mace + peppertop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

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

Mace and pepper barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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

Anchovies
Provide the dominant salty, savory, umami flavor that defines the butter.
Butter
Carries the fat that gives a smooth, spreadable texture and mellows the anchovy intensity.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic flavor that complements the anchovies.
Cayenne pepper
Adds a sharp background heat that lifts the savory flavors.

The step that matters

Adjust the amount of butter to control the anchovy flavor.. Anchovies are very salty and intensely savory, and butter is what dilutes that concentration. Because the saltiness of anchovies varies, tasting and changing the butter ratio keeps the finished spread balanced rather than overpowering.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg. 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.

More anchovy butter recipes

Sauce 8Broccoli with Sauce 3 See all 84 →

You might also like

Tomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipesYorkshire PuddingYorkshire Pudding264 recipes