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Bread

Anchovy-and-Egg Canapes

A small appetizer of toasted bread topped with a mixture of anchovies, egg white, pimentos, capers, and mayonnaise.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 6 ingredients
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Why it works: Capers and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 1,222 recipes. Both carry coumarin, which smells sweet, hay. The science ↓

Anchovy-and-Egg Canapes

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the toast

  1. Cut the bread into 2-inch squares, about ⅓ inch thick.

  2. Toast the bread until golden brown.

Make the topping

  1. Chop the white of the hard-cooked egg very finely.

  2. Finely chop the anchovy flesh, pimentos, and capers.

  3. Mix the anchovies, egg white, pimentos, and capers with enough mayonnaise to hold them together.

Assemble and serve

  1. Spread the mixture on the toasted bread, sift the cooked egg yolk over the top, and serve.

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. Capers + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together1,222 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  2. Bread + eggtop 13% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together22,662 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e)-2-octenal (fatty, green).

  3. Bread + caperstop 15% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together307 recipes

    Shared aroma: coumarin (sweet, hay).

  4. Egg + lemontop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

  5. Bread + lemontop 20% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together8,445 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

Egg and lemon barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 44,316 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

Bread
Provides a crisp, sturdy base that holds the topping.
Anchovies
Contribute a salty, savoury depth that dominates the flavour of the topping.
Hard-cooked egg
Adds soft, mild richness and texture through the white and yolk.
Mayonnaise
Binds the chopped ingredients together and adds moisture and richness.
Capers
Add a sharp, briny acidity that cuts through the richness.

The step that matters

Mix the topping to the right consistency. Enough mayonnaise must bind the chopped ingredients so they hold together on the toast, but too much makes the topping soggy and loose. Finely chopping the components also helps them spread evenly and sit well on the bread.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (bread, egg, capers):

  1. Lemonthe original
  2. Avocadofits about as well
  3. Pumpkinfits less well
  4. Raisinfits less well

Fit is the average pairing score against bread, egg, capers. 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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