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Potted Fish

A fish dish made by pounding boiled fish with butter, cayenne pepper, and anchovy sauce, then served in small pots.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 4 ingredients
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Why it works: Anchovy and sauce are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 2% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 2,057 recipes. Both carry ethanol, which smells alcoholic, ethereal. The science ↓

Potted Fish

Ingredients

Directions

Make the paste

  1. Remove bones and skin from the fish.

  2. Place the fish in a mortar with the butter, cayenne, and anchovy sauce.

  3. Pound the mixture well until smooth.

Pot and finish

  1. Transfer the mixture into small pots.

  2. Melt some additional butter and pour it over the top.

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. Anchovy + saucetop 2% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,057 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  2. Fish + anchovytop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together637 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  3. Fish + buttertop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,488 recipes

    Shared aroma: (z)-4-heptenal (biscuit, cream).

  4. Anchovy + buttertop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,697 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  5. Sauce + buttertop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together15,338 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Sauce and butter barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 15,338 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

Cold boiled fish
Forms the body of the paste, and pounding breaks its flesh into a spreadable texture.
Butter
Adds richness and fat that smooths the paste and gives it a silky mouthfeel.
Anchovy sauce
Adds salty, savoury depth that rounds out the flavour of the fish.

The step that matters

Pound the mixture well until smooth. Pounding breaks the fish and butter into a fine, evenly blended paste. If it stays lumpy, the texture will be grainy rather than spreadable.

“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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