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Anchovies


snowangel

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Vinagrette for salads or vegetables.

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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the two fat ladies used to recommend using anchovies with everything.

i usually buy large jars of anchovies packed in oil and they last a long time in the fridge. an opened tin would be good for at least a week i'd guess--depending on how cold your fridge is. but, there's always the rinse and eat out of the can option. i always eat as many straight out of the jar as i put in a dish.

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I don't know what the official line is, but I've kept anchovies in olive oil in a glass jar in the fridge for a couple of months with no ill effects. I wonder if your Tupperware will become permanently infused with essence of anchovy; I recommend a transfer to glass or similar.

Cook's Illustrated has a recipe for a simple anchovy sauce for broccoli that I've used on kale and other greens. It's basically a warm vinaigrette: warm the anchovies in olive oil, mash them up, combine with vinegar and Dijon mustard. Black pepper and a little more salt if desired.

I concur with using them in slow-cooked meat dishes, especially lamb.

edited to add stuff

Edited by Alex (log)

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

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"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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I have a beautiful round tin of the salt-packed I bought probably 7 or 8 years ago. I've always been afraid to open it until I go on an anchovy kick. This is stupid because I love them and eat them ofte, buying smaller jars of oil-packed to avoid digging into my saltpacked. My mind is a wonder!

So is my tin still good?

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saute greens (curly endive, or kale) with a couple of mashed anchovies, chili flakes, kalamata olives, toasted pine nuts, golden raisins, garlic and salt. add a little white wine and cook until just wilted. serve in a bowl with bread to soak the broth, or toss with orcchiette and top with bread crumbs. divine.

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I recently ordered anchovies from a site called www.latienda.com. Full of Spanish goodies but especially the excellent anchovies from Escala.

You shouldn't eat grouse and woodcock, venison, a quail and dove pate, abalone and oysters, caviar, calf sweetbreads, kidneys, liver, and ducks all during the same week with several cases of wine. That's a health tip.

Jim Harrison from "Off to the Side"

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I found this link:

Anchovy Shelf Life Study

I think it's the definition of overkill but right on topic.

I agree about salt packed anchovies - they last forever.

Thanks for the info, MM. However, the study was done on anchovy patties -- essentially raw fish cakes made with ground anchovies. It's not surprising, therefore, that the quality started declining quickly and that the maximum shelf life was six days. Anchovies packed in oil (and refrigerated) should keep much longer. As I mentioned, I noticed no rancidity after a couple of months, but I imagine ymmv. Salt-packed ones do last a very, very, very long time.

"There is no sincerer love than the love of food."  -George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman, Act 1

 

"Imagine all the food you have eaten in your life and consider that you are simply some of that food, rearranged."  -Max Tegmark, physicist

 

Gene Weingarten, writing in the Washington Post about online news stories and the accompanying readers' comments: "I basically like 'comments,' though they can seem a little jarring: spit-flecked rants that are appended to a product that at least tries for a measure of objectivity and dignity. It's as though when you order a sirloin steak, it comes with a side of maggots."

 

"...in the mid-’90s when the internet was coming...there was a tendency to assume that when all the world’s knowledge comes online, everyone will flock to it. It turns out that if you give everyone access to the Library of Congress, what they do is watch videos on TikTok."  -Neil Stephenson, author, in The Atlantic

 

"In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual." -Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer

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What to do with them? Add them to ANYTHING you are cooking that needs salt. Soups, stews, braises, sautes -- they will add the necessary salt AND give an undefinable frisson of flavor. Kind the way fish sauce does, but with more subtlety.

Or you could mash them with butter, spread them on white toast, cover with a slice of American cheese and a slice of tomato, and broil until the tomato is hot and the cheese around it is bubbly and browned. I grew up on that, and still love it, even if it is disgusting. :biggrin:

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I find it interesting that most salt-pack anchovy tins tell you to keep refrigerated at all times (i.e. even unopened). Yet some stores don't. Whether Rancho Gordo's (unopened) tin has been refrigerated these past years could make a big difference to their condition.

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I would mash them up into a cube of butter, roll it into a log and then wrap in plastic wrap and then foil and freeze it. Use it on steaks, or whatever you feel like having anchovies on. It'll last forever, unless you grill as much as we do :smile:

Oops, just slice pats off as you need them; obviously you don't need to use the entire log of butter in one sitting. :unsure:

Edited by NVNVGirl (log)
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I have kept oil-packed anchovies in the fridge for a couple of months, sometimes even in their original little tin with the lid just pulled back. Eventually the salt exudes and forms a scary-looking crust, but the fish are fine. Probably not such a great effect on other items in the fridge, but whatever...

But I have also been known to scrape mold off of tomato paste and use it...so now you know where I stand....

Zora O’Neill aka "Zora"

Roving Gastronome

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When I was a kid, there always was a tube of Vita anchovy paste in the fridge. We would have anchovy paste and cream cheese sandwiches.

So get a fork and start mushing.

--mark

Everybody has Problems, but Chemists have Solutions.

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I simply love to add anchovies, onions, and capers to a simple tomato sauce for pasta.

Once I went to eat at a Spanish friend's house and she served anchovies and chunks of bread to go with sweet wine before the meal.

I always crush one or two anchovies into my vinaigrette.

Another all time favorite is to cut anchovies lengthwise into very thin strips, and to lay them onto little rectangles of pate feuillitee. Twist a couple of times and bake for 10 mins. Little salty fish flutes!

-Lucy

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  • 2 weeks later...

Three cheers for Amanda Hesser who wrote an article for the NY Times on one of my favorite treats from the sea: the anchovy. Her opening echoes much of my own thought on this oft mistreated and misunderstood little fish:

It's hard to blame anyone for not liking anchovies. Their salient qualities are concealed by fillets that are bony and withered, more like fragments of prehistoric fish. They are packed row by row in flimsy tins. They come from a factory, somewhere in a Dickens novel.

But it's harder to imagine living without them. There would be no Caesar salad, no pan bagnat, no pissaladière, no Provençal lamb stew, and no pasta puttanesca.

I, for one love anchovies. Especially salt-cured anchovies and especially fresh anchovies. Interestingly, Ms. Hesser states that she prefers oil-cured, finding specimens preserved in salt "sometimes slimy, sometimes dry." Not my own experience, but to each his (or her) own.

I love anchovy dressing on bitter greens (punterelle, of course), raw anchovies lightly cured in lemon juice and olive oil then sprinkled with parsley and crushed pepper, evoo and anchovy sauce on pasta with either preserved or fresh anchovies, marinated white anchovies in a sandwich with slices of hard-cooked egg, good anchovies on an Italian-style pizza, and an anchovy or two always enlivens any low/slow braised meat dish or stew. Now, having read Ms. Hesser's article, I am eager to make some anchovy butter for melting over steaks and chops. What a great idea!

What are some of the ways you love to eat anchovies?

--

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I am from Cantabria in Spain, so I have eaten plenty of good anchovies. When I was a kid, I used to spend time at my sister's house. My brother in law and I would always go to Santoña, the main town in Cantabria for anchovies pack in olive oil, and would get jars (probably a pound worth of anchovies per jar) full of long and delicious anchovies packed by the actual fishermen and purchased at their own house. One time he came home after work and found me (I was probably 10 years old) eating them out of the jar, no bread, nothing, just like eating olives or chips! He just kept laughing, teasing me about the size of my possible ulcer. They were so tasty. What a wonderful memory, since Fernando, my brother in law, died just a few weeks ago... There are always a couple jars at their house.

Now living in Minneapolis, it is difficult to find good anchovies unless I buy them online. I like to eat them by themselves with a piece of good bread and a glass of wine, while cooking. I also incorporate them into sauces and dressings.

Alex

Edited by AlexP (log)
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I also adore anchovies.

All the ways you mentioned above. A real favorite are the lightly cured raw anchovies (had at Zuni Cafe first). Thanks for your great idea re: sandwich with hard-boiled egg and anchovies---we always put a slice of anchovy over stuffed eggs. The sandwich idea is a quick way to enjoy this combination.

Besides pizza, also pissaladiere---and tapanade.

Another great use is to 'melt' some anchovies in butter and olive oil; then coat potatoes with this and roast. I've also seen this suggested for turnips but haven't tried it with turnips yet.

Also, Austrian/Viennese cooking uses anchovies very often in sauces to go with meats.

For example in meat 'rouladen' (browned and then 'pot roasted' rolls of pounded round steak); inside the meatroll are anchovies, onions, capers and parsley. A sauce is made from the drippings.

Wiener Schnitzel a la Holstein with a fried egg and strips of anchovies on top.

Or a "Naturschnitzel" ('breaded' only with flour, not bread crumbs) with which you make a sauce from the drippings, stock, anchovies and sour cream.... yum.

I wonder how the incredible e-gullet roasted cauliflower would taste as a pasta dish wth anchovies also?

This is making me hungry. Maybe a hard-boiled egg and anchovy sandwich is in order! :smile:

Edited by ludja (log)

"Under the dusty almond trees, ... stalls were set up which sold banana liquor, rolls, blood puddings, chopped fried meat, meat pies, sausage, yucca breads, crullers, buns, corn breads, puff pastes, longanizas, tripes, coconut nougats, rum toddies, along with all sorts of trifles, gewgaws, trinkets, and knickknacks, and cockfights and lottery tickets."

-- Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1962 "Big Mama's Funeral"

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