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Anchovy Butter

Anchovy butter is a spread made by pounding anchovies with butter, optionally seasoned, and stored in clarified beef suet.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and beef are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 10,847 recipes. Both carry 2-furfurylthiol, which smells coffee, roasted. The science ↓

Anchovy Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

  1. Wash the anchovies to remove excess pickle.

  2. Bone the anchovies and remove the heads.

Make the butter

  1. Pound the anchovies in a mortar with fresh butter until smooth.

  2. Rub the mixture through a sieve if necessary.

Store and season

  1. To store, place in small pots and cover with clarified beef suet to prevent rancidity.

  2. For anchovy toast, add cayenne, mustard powder, and spices as desired.

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. Butter + beeftop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together10,847 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-furfurylthiol (coffee, roasted).

  2. Beef + mustardtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,664 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-isopropyl-3-methoxypyrazine (earthy, pea).

  3. Butter + mustardtop 22% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,003 recipes

    Shared aroma: guaiacol (smoky, sweet).

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 butter.
Fresh butter
Carries the anchovies and gives the spread a smooth, rich texture.
Clarified beef suet
Forms a sealed layer over the butter to slow rancidity during storage.

The step that matters

Pound the anchovies with butter until smooth. Anchovies must be broken down fully so the butter blends evenly and has no fishy lumps. Sieving any remaining fibres gives a silky texture.

Swap the mustard

The recipe marks mustard as optional. How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, beef):

  1. Potatofits better
  2. Onionfits better
  3. Chivefits better
  4. Mustardthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, beef. 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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