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Sauce

Anchovy Sauce

A sauce made from anchovies, nutmeg, egg yolks, vinegar, oil, and parsley.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 7 ingredients
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Why it works: Nutmeg and parsley match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 3% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,062 recipes. Both carry 4'-methylacetophenone, which smells bitter almond. The science ↓

Anchovy Sauce

Oven, in the book's wordsA moderate oven

Ingredients

Directions

  1. In a bowl, combine grated nutmeg and egg yolks.

  2. Add 1 teaspoon of vinegar and blend well.

  3. Slowly add 1 cup of oil drop by drop, as you would for mayonnaise.

  4. Thin the mixture with 2 tablespoons of vinegar as needed.

  5. Stir in chopped parsley and the anchovy pulp.

  6. Serve immediately or store in the refrigerator.

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. Nutmeg + parsleytop 3% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,062 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  2. Vinegar + parsleytop 16% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together6,477 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

  3. Nutmeg + eggtop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together24,744 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetic acid (sour, vinegar).

  4. Egg + parsleytop 21% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together18,765 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2,4-decadienal (seaweed).

  5. Nutmeg + vinegartop 25% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together2,864 recipes

    Shared aroma: 4'-methylacetophenone (bitter almond).

Nutmeg and egg barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 24,744 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

Egg yolks
Emulsify the oil and vinegar into a thick, stable sauce.
Oil
Provides the fat that gives the sauce its rich, creamy body.
Anchovies
Supply a salty, savoury depth of flavour to the sauce.
Vinegar
Adds acidity that brightens the sauce and helps thin it.

The step that matters

Adding the oil slowly, drop by drop. Oil must be dispersed into the yolk in tiny droplets so the emulsion forms. Adding it too fast overwhelms the yolk lecithin, and the sauce breaks into a greasy, separated mixture.

Swap the nutmeg

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

  1. Tarragonfits better
  2. Dillfits better
  3. Capersfits better
  4. Nutmegthe original

Fit is the average pairing score against egg, vinegar, parsley. 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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