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Anchovy Sauce

A simple sauce made with butter, flour, boiling water, anchovy paste, pepper, and sea salt.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and flour are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 12% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 124,287 recipes. Both carry isobutyraldehyde, which smells malty, green. The science ↓

Anchovy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a saucepan, melt the butter over medium heat and stir in the flour until smooth.

  2. Gradually add the boiling water, stirring continuously.

  3. Mix in the anchovy paste, pepper, and salt to taste.

  4. Continue stirring the sauce over heat until it boils and is perfectly smooth.

  5. Serve the sauce in a sauce bowl.

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. Butter + flourtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together124,287 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  2. Butter + anchovytop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Anchovy + peppertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together3,232 recipes

    Shared aroma: eucalyptol (eucalyptus, herbal).

  4. Flour + anchovytop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,753 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

  5. Flour + peppertop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together50,459 recipes

    Shared aroma: isobutyraldehyde (malty, green).

Butter and flour barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 124,287 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

Butter
Melts with the flour to form a roux that thickens the sauce and adds richness.
Flour
Forms a roux with the butter that thickens the boiling water into a smooth sauce.
Anchovy paste
Adds a salty, savoury depth of flavour that defines the sauce.

The step that matters

Add the boiling water gradually while stirring continuously. Adding liquid slowly while stirring keeps the flour and butter mixture smooth. Dumping it in at once lets flour clump into lumps that are hard to whisk out.

“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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