Skip to main content
Main

Anchovy Savoury

A savory anchovy spread made with eggs, butter, cayenne, lemon juice, and cochineal, served on fried bread crostini.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
Jump to recipe ↓

Why it works: Parsley and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 1% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 14,037 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Anchovy Savoury

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare

  1. Clean and wash the anchovies.

  2. Boil the eggs until hard-boiled, then place the yolks in a mortar with the anchovies, butter, cayenne, and lemon juice.

Make the spread

  1. Pound the mixture together and add a little cochineal for color.

  2. Rub the mixture through a coarse sieve.

Serve

  1. Arrange on fried bread crostini, sprinkle with chopped parsley, and serve hot.

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. Parsley + lemontop 1% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together14,037 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Butter + parsleytop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together28,563 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-hexenal (green, leafy).

  3. Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together41,227 recipes

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

  4. Egg + buttertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together118,967 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Eggs
Hard-boiled yolks give the spread a soft, creamy body and mild richness.
Butter
Adds fat that makes the spread smooth and rich, carrying the flavor.
Anchovies
Provide the salty, savory base flavor that defines the spread.
Lemon juice
Adds acidity that brightens the rich, salty flavors.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a coarse sieve. Pressing the paste through a sieve breaks down any remaining lumps and fibers, giving the spread a smooth, even texture rather than a grainy one.

“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.

You might also like

Lemon SauceLemon Sauce236 recipesTomato SoupTomato Soup526 recipesBrown BreadBrown Bread461 recipesMutton BrothMutton Broth292 recipes