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Anchovy Omelet
Take half a dozen salted anchovies; wash them lightly in cold water to remove a little of the salt taste, and fillet the fish. The fillets of anchovy, bottled in oil, sold at Italian ware-houses, answer perfectly. Fry thin slices of bread, cut them into small squares, and on each square lay a little piece of anchovy. Beat up, rather more than for an ordinary omelet, a dozen eggs; season with pepper and salt. With half the quantity make a large, flat, thin omelet, like a pancake. Do not turn it, but lay it on a hot dish. Over its surface distribute the pieces of fried bread and anchovy. With the remainder of the eggs make another omelette like the first. Lay it over the other with the browned side uppermost. Set it a few minutes before the fire, or in a gentle oven, to make the two surfaces adhere, and serve with any savoury sauce that suits the taste. Time to fry, five minutes for each omelet. Sufficient for six persons. Probable cost, 2s.
This is a two-layer omelet with anchovy croutons sandwiched between, closer to a Spanish tortilla in construction than to a French rolled omelet. The hinge is the pan: both layers must be the same diameter, so use one pan of a fixed size for both.
- Pan and portionsA dozen eggs split into two flat omelets in a 10-inch skillet gives two thin discs that stack neatly; the book's "sufficient for six persons" is accurate as a first course. In a smaller pan, work in four thinner layers rather than crowding two thick ones.
- "Beat up, rather more than for an ordinary omelet"This means beating to a light froth so the eggs set as a firm sheet that can be lifted whole. A French omelet is barely beaten to keep it custardy; here you want structure.
- Salted anchoviesWhole salt-packed anchovies still exist in Italian delicatessens and need a longer soak than the recipe implies, 10 to 20 minutes in cold water, then rinsing and filleting off the backbone. Oil-packed fillets, which the book already endorses, are the practical substitute: about 12 fillets for six anchovies.
- "A gentle oven"In period terms a low oven, roughly 250-300F, for three to five minutes, just to warm the layers together. Anything hotter dries the eggs and hardens the fried bread.
- The croutonsFry the bread in butter or oil until genuinely crisp and drain it well. Soft or greasy squares turn to paste between the layers, which defeats the whole point of the construction.
- "Do not turn it"The underside of the first omelet browns and the top stays pale; that pale face receives the croutons. The second omelet goes on browned-side up, so both visible surfaces are the cooked ones. Slide each disc out of the pan rather than folding it.
- SaltSeason the eggs lightly and taste first. Six anchovies plus fried bread already carry a good deal of salt, and salted fish varies enormously in strength.
- "Any savoury sauce"The recipe leaves this open. An anchovy butter or a thin brown sauce suits the dish better than anything creamy or acidic.
- Probable costTwo shillings, the figure as printed when Cassell's was compiled, useful only as a rough indication of relative cost rather than as a modern price.
Anchovy omelets belong to the Victorian and Edwardian savoury course, the small, sharply salted dish served after the sweet at a formal English dinner or, in practice, at supper and breakfast. The salted anchovy was among the most heavily used flavourings in nineteenth-century British kitchens, sold as whole salt-packed fish, as essence, and as the bottled oil-packed fillets Cassell's recommends here from "Italian warehouses" that sold olive oil, macaroni, dried fruit and preserved fish, the ancestors of the modern delicatessen. Cassell's New Dictionary of Cookery, an enormous alphabetical compilation aimed at middle-class households with a cook or two, carries many anchovy entries: the fish supplied depth and salt in an era before commercial stock cubes, and it kept well in its salt or oil.