Name: Anchovy Sauce
Ingredients: 4 anchovies; 2 tablespoons butter; ½ pint espagnole sauce or melted butter; 1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar (optional); 1 tablespoon essence of anchovy (optional)

Why it works: Sauce and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Anchovy Sauce

Ingredients

4 anchovies
2 tablespoons butter
½ pint espagnole sauce or melted butter
1 tablespoon lemon juice or vinegar (optional)
1 tablespoon essence of anchovy (optional)

Directions

Pound the anchovies in a mortar with the butter.
Stir the anchovy mixture into the espagnole sauce or melted butter.
Add lemon juice or vinegar if desired.
Alternatively, stir in essence of anchovy into melted 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.

Sauce + anchovytop 2% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,057 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,697 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + saucetop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together15,338 recipes

Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).
Lemon + anchovytop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,080 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together41,227 recipes

Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).

Butter and sauce barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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 salty, savoury flavour that defines the sauce.
Butter: Carries the anchovy flavour and gives the sauce a rich, smooth body.
Espagnole sauce: Forms the sauce base, adding body and savoury depth.

“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.