Name: Anchovy Powder
Ingredients: fish (cleaned, heads removed, bones taken out); dry flour; cayenne pepper (optional); citric acid (optional)

Why it works: Flour and pepper are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 19% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 50,459 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Anchovy Powder

Ingredients

fish (cleaned, heads removed, bones taken out)
dry flour
cayenne pepper (optional)
citric acid (optional)

Directions

Pound the cleaned fish in a mortar and rub through a sieve.
Make a paste with the fish and dry flour.
Roll the mixture into thin cakes and dry them in the sun or an oven.
Pound the dried cakes into a fine powder and store in a well-stoppered bottle.

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.

Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together50,459 recipes

Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).
Fish + peppertop 21% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together3,948 recipes

Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).
Fish + flourtop 27% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together2,532 recipes

Shared aroma: acetaldehyde (pungent, ethereal).