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Dessert

Anchovy Butter

Anchovy butter is a spread made from anchovies, butter, cayenne pepper, nutmeg, and mace.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and mace are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 4% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 6,557 recipes. Both carry myristicin, which smells spice, warm. The science ↓

Anchovy Butter

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

  1. Scrape the skin clean from the anchovies and remove the flesh from the bones.

  2. Pound the anchovies in a mortar until smooth.

  3. Rub the mixture through a fine sieve with a wooden spoon.

Make the butter

  1. In the cleaned mortar, combine the anchovies with the butter, cayenne, nutmeg, and mace.

  2. Beat the mixture until thoroughly blended.

  3. If serving cold, mold the butter into small shapes and turn it out.

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. Nutmeg + macetop 4% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,557 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  2. Pepper + nutmegtop 7% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together13,015 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Pepper + macetop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together12,257 recipes

    Shared aroma: myristicin (spice, warm).

  4. Butter + nutmegtop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together24,377 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  5. Butter + peppertop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together85,593 recipes

    Shared aroma: trans-2-nonenal (cardboard, fatty).

Pepper and mace barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 12,257 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 butter.
Butter
Carries the anchovy and spices, giving a smooth, rich texture when chilled.
Nutmeg
Adds warm, aromatic spice that complements the fish and butter.
Mace
Adds a delicate, aromatic spice flavour similar to nutmeg.

The step that matters

Rub the mixture through a fine sieve. Pounding alone leaves fibres and lumps; pressing through a fine sieve breaks them down further, producing the smooth texture the butter needs once it is blended with the fat.

Swap the mace

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (butter, pepper, nutmeg):

  1. Cinnamonfits better
  2. Parsleyfits better
  3. Clovefits better
  4. Macethe original

Fit is the average pairing score against butter, pepper, nutmeg. 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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