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Cayenne Pepper (Half an ounce of Cornflour)
Quarter of a pound of Flour. Two ounces of Butter. One tablespoonful of Anchovy Essence. Three Eggs. Half an ounce of Cornflour.
Half a gill of Cream.
Half a gill of Milk.
Three Gorgona Anchovies (filleted).
Breadcrumbs. Rub the flour and an ounce and a half of butter until quite fine, add a dessertspoonful of anchovy essence, a few drops of cochineal, a pinch of cayenne, and an egg well beaten, and work into a stiff paste. Add a little water if necessary. Roll out the paste very thinly, and line some buttered boat-shaped moulds with it. Trim the edges, prick them with a fork, and fill the moulds three parts full with a mixture prepared as follows:- Put the cornflour in a stewpan, add the milk, and stir it over the fire until it boils; then add two yolks of eggs. Let it cool a little. Whip one white of egg to a stiff froth, and whip the cream. Mix a teaspoonful of anchovy essence, a pinch of cayenne, and the anchovy fillets finely chopped with the cornflour, etc.; stir the cream and white of egg in lightly, and fill the moulds as directed. Sprinkle over with a few fresh breadcrumbs and bake in a moderately heated oven for about fifteen minutes. Serve on a hot dish with a folded napkin or dish paper,
These are anchovy barquettes — savoury boat-shaped tartlets from the late-Victorian savoury course. The printed heading and ingredient list have been garbled in the original book, so read the method carefully before you start: it calls for two separate anchovy-flavoured mixtures, one worked into the pastry and one used as the filling.
- The missing flour quantityThe ingredient list gives cornflour, cream, milk, anchovies and breadcrumbs, but no weight for the pastry flour, and the method simply says "the flour." With an ounce and a half of butter and one egg, 4 oz of plain flour gives a workable stiff paste; the original figure is genuinely lost and any number is a reconstruction.
- Gills and spoonsAn imperial gill is 5 fl oz, so half a gill is about 2 1/2 fl oz — roughly 1/3 cup — of cream and the same of milk. A dessertspoonful is about 2 teaspoons.
- CornflourBritish cornflour is cornstarch, not cornmeal. Half an ounce is about 2 level tablespoons, which with 2 1/2 fl oz of milk and two yolks gives a very thick panade — that stiffness is what lets the whipped cream and egg white hold up.
- Gorgona anchoviesSalt-packed anchovies associated with the Tuscan island of Gorgona, sold whole in brine or salt. Modern salted anchovies stand in well: rinse, split, lift out the backbone and pat dry. Oil-packed fillets can also be used; taste before adding more essence.
- Anchovy essence and cochinealAnchovy essence is a thin, vinegared anchovy sauce, still sold in the UK; anchovy paste loosened with a little water and a drop of vinegar stands in. The cochineal is colouring only, to give the pastry a pink cast, and can be left out with no effect on flavour.
- OvenA "moderately heated oven" is 350–375F (175–190C). Fifteen minutes will set the filling but leaves thin pastry pale; prick and blind-bake the lined moulds five to seven minutes before filling if you want them crisp underneath.
- MouldsBoat-shaped moulds are barquette tins, about 3 inches long. Small tartlet or mini-muffin tins do the same job. Fill only three parts full — the whipped white makes the mixture rise.
- Yield and servingExpect ten to twelve barquettes, enough for six as a savoury or first course. They are meant to be eaten hot from the oven; the soufflé-like filling sinks and firms as it cools.
Anchovy barquettes belong to the British savoury — a small, sharp, salty dish served at the end of a formal dinner, after the sweet and before dessert fruit, a sequence foreign visitors found peculiar and English diners defended vigorously. Anchovy in some processed form was the workhorse of that course: bottled anchovy essence, anchovy butter and anchovy paste were pantry staples from the mid-nineteenth century onward, and salted anchovies from Gorgona, the small island off Livorno, were sold in Britain as a named premium grade. The recipe's construction is characteristic of late-Victorian professional practice: a rich short paste built by rubbing butter into flour, a cornflour panade bound with yolks, and whipped cream and egg white folded in at the last moment to lift it — the same logic as a small hot soufflé, scaled down to a mouthful that could be carried in on a napkin-lined dish. The garbled heading appears to be a compositor's error, with fragments of the recipe's own wording — "Cayenne Pepper" and "Half an ounce of Cornflour" — running into the title; how the copy was set is not recorded.