Oh, and...

[venta]

Since you lot seem to be a mine of culinary information, here's another one:

What does one do with anchovies ? It came as a bit of a surprise to me a while back to discover I like them - marinated in oil and various other Mediterranean things, they bear no resemblance to the nasty, dried up cadavers one encounters on pizzas.

I usually just eat them with bread, or I suppose you could include them in antipasti. Last night I experimentally ate some with a leek and lemon risotto, and... well. It was edible, and I'm not dead. But it didn't really work, and I won't be repeating the exercise.

The anchovies have rather a sharp taste, and I can't really think of things that they'd go well with. Anyone got any suggestions ?

Comments

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

White anchovy fillets are the bestest things in the world. I found a supplier a while ago that would sell them at 15 quid for a kilo, and so managed to get through quite few of them...

They're best by themselves, with a little bread, maybe some artichoke hearts. Or grilled lightly. But if you put them into sauces and stews, they give a subtle richness to the proceedings...

Or you could make anchoiade with them, which is God's gift to toast...

[venta.livejournal.com]

Bread-and-artichoke-hearts has been my favoured approach to anchovies til now. Recently Waitrose had a special offer on all their marinated-stuff, so I got the anchovies, some artichokes and some marinated grilled aubergine for merely very expensive instead of ludicrous :)

What sort of sauces/stews? Wouldn't they make it rather sour and salty ?

anchoiade

You're using big words again :) However, I managed to operate google myself this time. Anchovy cream ? Is that similar to the stuff which gets sold as Gentleman's Relish ? I was always disappointed by GR - my mum swears by it on toast (specially under scrambled eggs), but I never really got on with it.

[mr-tom.livejournal.com]

What sort of sauces/stews? Wouldn't they make it rather sour and salty ?

Dark, rich ones that take a long time to cook - beef or lamb or game. They do add a bit of salt, so you just need to compensate by adding less salt later on! And the acidity boils off while it cooks, so there's no big worry there.

Anchoiade is basically tapenade made with anchovies rather than olives. It's more coarse than Patum Peperium (which is fantastic stuff, and your mater is spot on with the eggs thing!), but is otherwise pretty similar. Reminds me of long, hot, lazy days on the Riviera, looking out over the Med and drinking pastis...