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Savoury Toast

A toast topped with a sauce of anchovy, Worcestershire, cream, vinegar, egg yolk, and sliced boiled French beans.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 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 ↓

Savoury Toast

Ingredients

Directions

Make the topping

  1. In a saucepan over low heat, mix the anchovy sauce, Worcestershire sauce, cream, vinegar, and egg yolk.

  2. Add the finely sliced cold boiled French beans and mix well.

Serve

  1. Spread the mixture over rounds of hot buttered crisp toast.

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. Sauce + creamtop 9% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together4,787 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

  3. Anchovy + eggtop 12% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,330 recipes

    Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).

  4. Anchovy + creamtop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together798 recipes

    Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).

  5. Sauce + beanstop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together1,184 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethanol (alcoholic, ethereal).

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Egg yolk
Thickens the mixture as it warms gently, giving the topping a creamy, binding texture.
Anchovy sauce
Adds a salty, savoury depth that gives the topping its main flavour.
Worcestershire sauce
Adds tangy, savoury flavour with a little acidity to balance the richness.
Cream
Adds fat and moisture, making the topping smooth and rich.
French beans
Add bulk and a fresh, green texture to the topping.

The step that matters

Warming the egg yolk mixture over low heat. Egg yolk thickens when gently heated, but high heat can scramble it into lumps. Keeping the heat low and stirring lets the mixture thicken smoothly into a spreadable topping.

Swap the beans

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (anchovy, sauce, cream, vinegar, egg):

  1. Walnutfits about as well
  2. Sesamefits about as well
  3. Chestnutfits about as well
  4. Beansthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against anchovy, sauce, cream, vinegar, egg. 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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