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To Fillet Anchovies

The recipe explains how to fillet anchovies for use in toasts or sandwiches.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 3 ingredients
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Why it works: Bread and butter 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 ↓

To Fillet Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

  1. Drain the anchovies well from the pickle.

  2. Remove the heads and fins, and lay them separately on a plate.

  3. Scrape off the skin entirely.

  4. Place the anchovies on a clean dish.

  5. With a sharp knife, raise the flesh on either side of the backbone from the tail to the shoulders, keeping it nearly flat.

  6. Divide each fillet in two.

Serve

  1. Serve the fillets as directed for toasts or use them in sandwiches with slices of bread and butter.

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. Bread + buttertop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together27,232 recipes

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

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Provide the main savoury, salty flavour and the fillets themselves, which form the dish.
Slices of bread
Give a crisp or soft base that carries the fillets in toasts or sandwiches.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, helping the bread taste savoury and feel smooth.

The step that matters

Raising the fillets from the backbone. Cutting too deep or tearing the flesh breaks the delicate fillet into pieces. Keeping the knife close to the bone and the fillet nearly flat keeps the pieces intact and neat for serving.

“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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