Home › Menu VII › Anchovy Canape
Anchovy Canape
Put 2 eggs in top of double boiler, cover with boiling water and cook over boiling water or on back of stove for 60 minutes. Chop the whites (with silver knife to prevent discoloring), and rub yolks through a coarse strainer. Cut 8 slices bread in pieces 4 1/4 inches long by 2 3/4 inches wide and 1/4 inch thick. Saute in Butter on one side only. Spread other side with Anchovy paste. Divide diagonally into 3 sections, having 2 end sections half a square. Sprinkle end sections of the bread with Egg yolk and the center with Egg white. Separate sections with narrow strips of Pimiento. Serve as an appetizer.
A composed cold canapé from a luncheon menu, built on a one-sided fried crouton. Almost all of the work is in the geometry and the neatness of the sieved egg.
- The hour-long eggCovering eggs with boiling water in a double boiler and holding them away from direct heat for 60 minutes is an old gentle method of hard-cooking; the yolk sets pale and crumbly rather than developing a green ring. Fifteen minutes in water just off the boil gives a similar result if you would rather not tie up a burner.
- Why a silver knifeCarbon-steel blades of the period reacted with sulphur in the egg white and left grey streaks. Stainless steel does not, so use whatever knife you own.
- Sieved yolk and chopped whiteThe recipe rubs the yolk through the strainer first and then sprinkles it over the end sections. Press it through with the back of a spoon and do not pack it, or it clumps.
- Fried on one side onlyThe recipe sautes one side and spreads the anchovy paste on the dry other side; presumably the crisp face is meant to sit against the plate. Do not turn the slices in the pan.
- Anchovy pasteTinned or tubed anchovy paste, or the British potted relish sold under the same idea, is still made and is intensely salty. Spread it thin enough to see the bread through it; there is no other seasoning in the dish and none is needed.
- PimientoJarred pimiento, not fresh red pepper. Drain the strips well and blot them, or the moisture bleeds pink into the egg.
- The cuttingEach 4 1/4 by 2 3/4 inch rectangle is cut on two diagonals into three sections, the two ends being half-squares (a 2 3/4 inch square cut corner to corner) with a parallelogram between them. A firm white sandwich loaf, slightly stale, cuts cleanest; trim crusts before frying.
- Yield and timingEight slices give 24 small canapes, enough for six to eight as an appetizer. Assemble within an hour of serving, since anchovy paste softens the bread from underneath.
The canape as a category, a small fried or toasted bread base under a savoury topping, arrived in American entertaining from French service in the later nineteenth century and was firmly established by the time of the luncheon-and-supper books of the 1910s and 1920s, which needed dozens of small, cold, make-ahead items. Anchovy was among the most useful of these toppings: shelf-stable, strongly flavoured, and available ready-pounded in tins and jars, so a hostess could produce something emphatically savoury without touching fresh fish. The fussy diagonal cutting and the striping of yolk, white and pimiento belong to the same period taste that produced radish roses and aspic moulds, where a luncheon plate was judged partly as a pattern; the silver-knife instruction is a small reminder that carbon steel knives reacted visibly with egg.