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Anchovy Sandwiches
Remove the bones from one dozen anchovies; add the yolks of three hard-cooked eggs, and pound to a paste. Mix two tablespoons Parmesan cheese, with a few grains of cayenne; add to anchovy mixture, with enough cream to make of the consistency to spread.
Use for a filling between slices of buttered white bread.
A savoury sandwich filling of the type served at afternoon tea or as a light supper dish. It needs almost no updating, but the anchovies themselves have changed more than anything else in the list.
- A dozen anchoviesThe book most likely means whole salt-cured fish, which yield two fillets each — so roughly 20-24 modern tinned fillets, or about two standard 2 oz tins drained. Anchovy paste from a tube is not an ideal substitute here; it is already emulsified and seasoned.
- Salt-packed vs oil-packedIf you find salt-packed anchovies, rinse and soak them 10-20 minutes before boning, or the filling will be inedibly salty. Oil-packed fillets need only draining and a quick pat dry.
- Do not add saltThe hinge of the recipe: between the anchovies and the Parmesan there is already a great deal of salt, which is why the original seasons only with cayenne. Taste before you consider adding anything.
- PoundingA mortar gives the smoothest result, but a small food processor works. Pulse rather than run it — over-processing the egg yolks makes the paste gluey.
- ParmesanTwo tablespoons means finely grated hard cheese, not the powdered shaker product, which contains anti-caking starch and will make the filling grainy.
- CreamStart with a tablespoon and add more by the teaspoon. You want a stiff spreading paste; too loose and it soaks through the bread within minutes.
- YieldEnough for about 8 to 10 slices of bread, or roughly 20 small tea sandwiches with the crusts cut off. Butter both faces of the bread — it acts as a moisture barrier as much as a flavouring.
- HoldingThe filling keeps three or four days covered in the refrigerator and improves after a few hours. Assembled sandwiches should be made within an hour or two of serving and kept under a damp cloth.
Lowney's Cook Book was compiled by Maria Willett Howard and published in 1907 by the Walter M. Lowney Company, the Boston chocolate manufacturer — one of many house cookbooks issued by food firms to promote their product while offering a full general cookery reference. Anchovy sandwiches belong to the Anglo-American taste for the savoury: a small, salty, sharply seasoned course eaten at the end of dinner or handed round at tea, of which anchovy toast, potted shrimp and Scotch woodcock are cousins. Salt-cured anchovies had been a British and American pantry staple since the eighteenth century, when they arrived from the Mediterranean in barrels and casks, and anchovy was an ingredient in bottled sauces of the period, Worcestershire among them.