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Anchovy Sandwiches
Wash 6 or 8 anchovies, cut off their heads and fins, take out the backbones, and divide each fish in two, from the shoulder to the tail. Cut an equal number of thin slices of brown bread and butter; put between 2 slices alternate layers of hard-boiled eggs, mustard and cress cut small, and the fillets of the anchovies; press the slices closely together, and with a sharp knife cut them into neat squares. Place them on a dish covered with a napkin, and garnish with parsley. If not wanted immediately, cover them with a napkin wrung out of cold water to keep them moist.
The recipe assumes whole salt-packed anchovies, which is why it begins with washing and boning. Most of the work disappears if you buy fillets, but so does some of the control over salt.
- The anchoviesWhole salted anchovies still exist in Italian and Spanish delis, sold loose or in tins packed in coarse salt. Rinse them well, run a thumb along the belly to lift the backbone, and soak the fillets in cold water or milk for 10-15 minutes if they taste aggressively salty. Oil-packed fillets from a tin can be substituted directly: 12-16 fillets replaces 6 or 8 whole fish.
- Do not add salt anywhereThis is the hinge. Between cured fish and salted butter there is more than enough; season the egg with pepper only, and taste a fillet before you build anything.
- Mustard and cressA punnet of fine seedling shoots, standard in British greengrocers and sold as "mustard and cress" or simply "cress". Peppery microgreens, small watercress leaves or the tops of young rocket give the same bite.
- Brown breadA close-textured wholemeal, cut thin and buttered to the crust. Butter both slices right to the edge: it waterproofs the crumb against the egg and the damp cress, which is what keeps the squares from going limp.
- CuttingChill the assembled sandwiches under a weighted board for 20 minutes before trimming. Crusts off, then two cuts each way with a long thin knife wiped between strokes.
- The damp napkinSound practice, and a clean tea towel wrung out in cold water still works. A box in the refrigerator with a sheet of damp kitchen paper over the top does the same job with less risk of the cloth sitting directly on the butter.
- YieldSix or eight fish and their matching slices of bread make roughly three or four rounds, enough for a tea table serving four to six alongside other sandwiches.
Anchovy in one form or another was the standard savoury note in the Victorian and Edwardian larder, sold as whole salted fish in barrels, as bottled essence, and as anchovy paste of the kind sold as Gentleman's Relish. Tea sandwiches of this kind, cut into squares, laid on a napkin and garnished with parsley, are associated with the late nineteenth-century afternoon tea, where a salty item was expected to sit beside the cucumber and the cake. The instruction to divide each fish "from the shoulder to the tail" is a reminder that the cook was handling whole cured fish rather than the pre-filleted tin, and the damp-napkin trick at the end suggests a kitchen with no refrigeration, where sandwiches made in the morning had to survive until four o'clock.