Why it works: Butter and lemon are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 16% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 41,227 recipes. Both carry 3-hexenal, which smells apple, fruity. The science ↓
Anchovy Sauce
Ingredients
Directions
Make the anchovy butter
Pound the anchovies with the butter in a mortar.
Rub the mixture through a fine sieve using the back of a wooden spoon.
Finish the sauce
Stir the anchovy mixture into the thick melted butter.
If desired, add lemon juice and cayenne for extra flavor.
Alternatively, add essence of anchovies to the melted butter.
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.
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Butter + lemontop 16% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together41,227 recipes
Shared aroma: 3-hexenal (apple, fruity).
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 flavour and gives the sauce its rich, smooth body.
The step that matters
Rubbing the anchovy mixture through a fine sieve. Pressing the paste through a fine sieve breaks up fibres and lumps so the finished sauce is smooth rather than gritty. Skipping this step leaves small pieces of anchovy in the sauce and a coarser texture.
“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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