Anchovies

[monavano]

Decadent, maybe, but very good .

I've been making a meatball recipe from The Silver Spoon that combines beef with anchovies. I actually increase the amount of anchovies over what is called for in the recipe. The anchovies enhance the flavor of the meatballs beautifully but are not distinguishable as anchovies. I'd give the anchovies in lamb a try.

Pat, the anchovies in meatballs sounds terrific-about how many do you add per pound of meatball mix?

[Pat]

Pat, the anchovies in meatballs sounds terrific-about how many do you add per pound of meatball mix?

It's now occurring to me (duh ) that I'm using anchovy fillets. The recipe says 2 canned anchovies, drained and finely chopped, and I didn't even think about whether that means whole anchovies or fillets. Perhaps it means whole anchovies, and that's why 2 fillets seemed to be too little.

I usually use 4 fillets. The recipe measures the meat in cups (3 1/2), which comes out to more than 1 lb. but not 2--maybe about 1 1/2 lbs. or so. I can weigh it next time. I probably should know. I just buy 2-3 lbs and freeze the extra.

So, that's 4 anchovy fillets to 3 1/2 cups. How many fillets are there in a whole anchovy? If it's two, then I've hit on the right number .

[Anna Blume]

Was *Silver Spoon* written too early to refer to the much larger salt-packed anchovies?

I recommend investing in a large can of Sicilian or Spanish salt-packed anchovies. You'll have to repack them in a sterile jar; stored in the fridge, they last forever or at least, over a year. Clean by rubbing off the skin and salt--the bones come out quickly. Rinse if you'd like. Use the search engine for earlier discussions. I bought mine at Vace. Balducci's carries/carried a different brand for half the price (($12); I tried a couple from Dean & DeLucca first to see if I liked them. I do. More flavor beyond the sharp salt.

[Pat]

Was *Silver Spoon* written too early to refer to the much larger salt-packed anchovies?

I recommend investing in a large can of Sicilian or Spanish salt-packed anchovies. You'll have to repack them in a sterile jar; stored in the fridge, they last forever or at least, over a year. Clean by rubbing off the skin and salt--the bones come out quickly. Rinse if you'd like. Use the search engine for earlier discussions. I bought mine at Vace. Balducci's carries/carried a different brand for half the price (($12); I tried a couple from Dean & DeLucca first to see if I liked them. I do. More flavor beyond the sharp salt.

SS was published in 1950, but the revised edition is 1997. I looked through and there are recipes that call for fillets, so this recipe clearly does call for whole anchovies. They specify canned anchovies in oil.

The very best anchovies I ever bought--I believe they were in fillets in olive oil--came from Costco, in a large jar. Those were phenomenal. It took a long time to use them, and I never saw those again. I'll look for the canned ones in salt.

What I would really love to find are capers in salt. I used to find them on the salad bar at the old Pinecrest Whole Foods. I have not seen them anywhere else. The brined ones always smell like acetone to me, and no matter how much I rinse them, I find that smell/taste hard to stomach.

[Anna Blume]

Pat, for some reason I had the Silver Palette in mind as opposed to the English revised version of Italy's Betty Crocker/Joy of Cooking book. In that case, the reference may very well be to salt-packed anchovies which are nothing like even the yummy pink fillets in jars. I haven't met an anchovy I didn't love, but the salt-packed ones are truly worth seeking out. Quite different.

[Pat]

Pat, for some reason I had the Silver Palette in mind as opposed to the English revised version of Italy's Betty Crocker/Joy of Cooking book. In that case, the reference may very well be to salt-packed anchovies which are nothing like even the yummy pink fillets in jars. I haven't met an anchovy I didn't love, but the salt-packed ones are truly worth seeking out. Quite different.

The recipe specifies canned anchovies in oil.

[Heather]

Anchovy paste is my new BFF. I made a disgraceful amount of anchovy butter this week and have been spreading it on my breakfast toast every morning. It's also delicious on steamed vegetables, steaks, and licked off one's fingers.

[Waitman]

Anchovy paste is my new BFF. I made a disgraceful amount of anchovy butter this week and have been spreading it on my breakfast toast every morning. It's also delicious on steamed vegetables, steaks, and licked off one's fingers.

For years, a go-to "decent" mid-week dinner has been skirt steak (the poor man's onglet, available at the bodega around the corner), with an anchovy/roast garlic butter, often made with the paste, but can be done with the filets as well.

mm-mm good!

[The Hersch]

Anchovy paste is my new BFF. I made a disgraceful amount of anchovy butter this week and have been spreading it on my breakfast toast every morning. It's also delicious on steamed vegetables, steaks, and licked off one's fingers.

Anchovy toast was a standard savory in Victorian English cuisine, although they unwisely loaded up their anchovy butter with nutmeg and mace. (If you look through Mrs Beeton's Book of Household Management (and you should), you'll find the author advising you to put mace in practically everything.) There's a scene in E.F. Benson's wonderful novel David of King's (1924) that I treasure as one of the great comic episodes in English fiction, where one of the Cambridge dons complains of an undergraduate in these terms:

He -- he drank my hock, and ate my anchovy-toast, and then thought good to interrupt my lecture by wholly unmannerly mirth. Will you please record that, and act on it?

[hillvalley]

Back in our eGullet days either Al Dente or Waitman told me to throw some anchovie paste into my tomato sauce and when braising short ribs. It provides a layer of umami I haven't been able to gain from other ingredients.