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Anchovy and Caper Sauce for Fish

A savory sauce made from anchovies, veal broth, soy sauce, shallot vinegar, nutmeg, butter, cayenne pepper, and capers.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Shallot and capers match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 405 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Anchovy and Caper Sauce for Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sauce

  1. Rub the anchovies through a fine sieve.

  2. In a saucepan, combine the anchovies, veal broth, soy sauce, shallot vinegar, and nutmeg.

  3. Add the butter.

Cook and serve

  1. Heat until boiling.

  2. Thicken the sauce.

  3. Stir in the cayenne pepper and chopped capers.

  4. Simmer for 10 minutes.

  5. Serve in a butter boat or pour over baked haddock or gurnet.

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. Shallot + caperstop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together405 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Shallot + nutmegtop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,019 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  3. Nutmeg + caperstop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together211 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Nutmeg + peppertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

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

  5. Sauce + caperstop 11% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together678 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolved into the sauce to give a salty, savoury depth of flavour.
Veal broth
Forms the liquid base of the sauce, carrying the other flavours.
Fresh butter
Adds richness and a smooth, glossy texture as it melts into the sauce.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness of the butter.
Shallot vinegar
Adds acidity and a mild shallot aroma that brightens the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the butter and heat until boiling. Butter is an emulsion of fat and water that can separate if overheated. Bringing the sauce to a boil gently and then thickening it keeps it smooth rather than oily.

Swap the nutmeg

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (veal, sauce, shallot, vinegar, butter, pepper, capers):

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Thymefits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against veal, sauce, shallot, vinegar, butter, pepper, capers. 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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