Why it works: Anchovy and butter are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 13% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,697 recipes. Both carry decanal, which smells soap, orange peel. The science ↓
Fillet of Anchovies
Ingredients
Directions
Set the fillets
Set a little aspic jelly on a flat dish.
Place the anchovy fillets on the jelly and cover with more jelly.
Once set, cut into stripes.
Serve
Serve one stripe to each person, garnished with anchovy 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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Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairsSmell alikemoderateCooked together3,697 recipes
Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs
What each ingredient does
- Anchovies prepared in oil
- Provide the main savoury flavour and the fish that the dish is built around.
- Aspic jelly
- Sets around the fillets to hold them in a firm, sliceable layer.
- Anchovy butter
- Adds rich, salty fat as a garnish that complements the anchovies.
The step that matters
Covering the fillets with jelly and letting it set. The aspic must be set in a thin, even layer before cutting. If it is too warm or not fully set, the stripes will crumble or smear. Gelatin sets as it cools, so the layer needs time to firm before handling.
“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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