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Sauce

Anchovy Sauce

A sauce made by simmering anchovies, then blending with drawn butter, sherry, and flour.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Why it works: Butter and sherry are a kitchen classic. They rank in the top 14% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 3,505 recipes. Both carry ethyl octanoate, which smells fruity, wine. The science ↓

Anchovy Sauce

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the anchovy liquid

  1. Soak the anchovies in cold water for 2 hours.

  2. Pull the anchovies apart and simmer them in just enough water to cover for 30 minutes.

  3. Strain the liquid into the drawn butter.

Make the sauce

  1. Melt 3 ounces of butter with ½ pint of hot water.

  2. Add a beaten egg.

  3. Add 1 heaping teaspoon of flour.

  4. Boil the mixture for 1 minute.

  5. Gradually add the sherry.

  6. Heat to a boil.

  7. Stew for 5 more minutes.

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. Butter + sherrytop 14% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together3,505 recipes

    Shared aroma: ethyl octanoate (fruity, wine).

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

What each ingredient does

Anchovies
Dissolve into the liquid to give the sauce its savory, salty depth.
Butter
Adds richness and a smooth, rounded mouthfeel to the sauce.
Egg (in the method)
Helps bind and enrich the sauce, adding body as it heats.
Flour (in the method)
Thickens the liquid so the sauce coats the back of a spoon.
Sherry
Adds acidity and aromatic complexity that brightens the rich butter.

The step that matters

Boil the mixture for 1 minute after adding the flour. Flour only thickens fully when its starch granules swell and the mixture reaches a boil. Boiling also cooks out the raw, pasty taste of the flour, so the sauce stays smooth and well set.

“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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