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Anchovies, Fried
Wash a dozen anchovies and dry them well, cut off the heads, open them, and remove the backbone without breaking the fish. This can be easily done with the fingers. Dip them in a light batter, and fry them in boiling oil, or lard, until they are slightly browned. If preferred, they may be soaked for three quarters of an hour in a little milk, and floured before frying. Time to fry, five minutes. Probable cost, 1s. 4d. Sufficient for two or three persons.
A Victorian savoury that depends entirely on what kind of anchovy you start with. The recipe assumes whole salted fish from a barrel, which is why the milk soak is offered as an option rather than an afterthought.
- Which anchovyNot the canned fillets in oil, which are already boned, filleted and far too salty and soft to batter. Use either whole salt-cured anchovies (sold packed in salt, usually in tins or tubs from Italian and Spanish suppliers) or fresh anchovies if you can get them. Fresh ones need no soaking at all.
- The soak is not optional for salted fishSalt-packed anchovies carry enough salt to make the finished dish inedible. Rinse thoroughly, then soak in milk or cold water for 45 minutes to an hour, changing the liquid once, and taste a scrap before you commit the batch to batter.
- Boning with the fingersThis works as described on cured or fresh fish. Open the fish along the belly, lift the spine out from the head end, and it comes away in one piece with the tail attached. Small pin bones are soft enough to eat.
- Frying temperature"Boiling oil" means hot fat, not liquid at a boil. Bring it to 350-375F; a cube of bread should colour in about 40 seconds. Cooler than that and light batter absorbs fat instead of setting.
- Time to fryFive minutes will dry these out. Anchovies are thin and cook in 1-2 minutes per batch, floured, or 2-3 minutes in batter, out as soon as they are pale gold. Fry in small batches so the fat does not drop in temperature.
- A light batterThe recipe specifies nothing beyond 'light', which in Victorian practice generally meant a thin flour-and-water or flour-and-milk batter, sometimes with beaten egg white folded in. Aim for the consistency of pouring cream; a thick coating overwhelms fish this small.
- Cost and yieldThe probable cost is given as 1s. 4d. A dozen fish serves two or three as a savoury course or with drinks, not as a main dish. Lemon suits them.
Fried anchovies belong to the British savoury course, the small salty dish served after the sweet at a formal Victorian dinner, and they also turn up on the supper table and as a relish with drinks. The anchovy is generally thought to have reached nineteenth-century English kitchens in cured form rather than fresh: barrels of salted fish from the Mediterranean, plus the bottled essence and paste that flavoured everything from steak sauce to potted meats. That is why the recipe hedges with a milk soak, often said to be a nineteenth-century trick for drawing salt out of cured fish. Where fresh anchovies are landed, in Spain, Italy and the south of France, frying them whole in a light coating remains the ordinary treatment, and the Cassell's method is recognisably the same dish.