Name: Anchovies a LA Colmar
Ingredients: prepared Christiania anchovies; fried bread (for croutons); hard-boiled eggs (2); anchovy cream (see recipe)

Why it works: Bread and anchovy are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 10% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,260 recipes. Both carry hexanol, which smells green, fruity. The science ↓

Anchovies a LA Colmar

Ingredients

prepared Christiania anchovies
fried bread (for croutons)
hard-boiled eggs (2)
anchovy cream (see recipe)

Directions

Assemble

Curl each anchovy and place it on a small round crouton of fried bread.
Rub the hard-boiled egg white and yolk through a wire sieve and garnish each crouton with it.
Using a piping bag and small rose pipe, garnish around each crouton with anchovy cream.

Serve

Serve one crouton to each person.

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.

Bread + anchovytop 10% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together1,260 recipes

Shared aroma: hexanol (green, fruity).
Egg + anchovytop 12% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together2,330 recipes

Shared aroma: decanal (soap, orange peel).
Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together22,662 recipes

Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).
Anchovy + creamtop 15% of all pairs

Smell alikemoderate

Cooked together798 recipes

Shared aroma: octanal (fat, soap).
Egg + creamtop 24% of all pairs

Smell alikelow

Cooked together42,166 recipes

Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

Egg and cream barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 42,166 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

Prepared christiania anchovies: Provides the salty, savoury flavour that is the main taste of the dish.
Fried bread: Forms the crisp base that holds the toppings and adds a contrasting texture.
Hard-boiled eggs: Their sieved white and yolk add a soft, mild, creamy garnish against the salty anchovy.
Anchovy cream: Adds a rich, smooth, salty layer that is piped around each crouton for flavour and finish.

“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.