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Potted Anchovies

Anchovy paste blended with butter, mace, cayenne pepper, and nutmeg, then chilled to set.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Mace and nutmeg 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 ↓

Potted Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovies

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

  2. Pound the flesh into a perfect paste using a mortar and pestle.

  3. Press the paste through a fine sieve with the back of a wooden spoon.

Make the paste

  1. Weigh the anchovies and pound them again with double their weight of softened butter.

  2. Add mace, cayenne, and a small amount of grated nutmeg to the mixture.

Set and store

  1. Set the mixture aside in a cool place for three to four hours to harden.

  2. If desired, pour lukewarm butter over the mixture before storing.

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. Mace + nutmegtop 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. Mace + peppertop 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).

Mace and pepper 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 main savoury, salty flavour that defines the dish.
Butter
Adds richness and fat, giving the paste a smooth, spreadable texture.
Mace
Adds a warm, aromatic spice note that complements the anchovies.
Cayenne pepper
Adds gentle heat that sharpens the overall flavour.

The step that matters

Pressing the paste through a fine sieve. Pressing removes fibres and small bones that would otherwise leave a coarse, gritty texture. A smooth paste also blends more evenly with the butter, so the finished spread is consistent throughout.

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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