Sandwich Savouries
INGREDIENTS for savoury for 6 persons.-6 anchovies, 2 rounds of stale bread, 2 eggs, butter for frying. AVERAGE COST, 9d.
The bread should be cut about one-third of an inch in thickness, and stamped out with a cutter in rounds of the size of a 5s. piece. These fry in butter till of a bright golden brown, and set aside. Bone, wash and fillet the anchovies, and, when the croûtons are cold, curl two fillets upon each and fill in the centre with finely-chopped white of egg and the yolk rubbed through a sieve.
SEASONABLE at any time.
A savoury-course canapé: fried bread rounds topped with curled anchovy fillets and sieved egg. The original assumes a good deal of knowledge it does not state.
- The eggs must be hard-boiledNowhere does the recipe say to cook them, but chopped white and yolk "rubbed through a sieve" only make sense from hard-boiled eggs. Eight to ten minutes, then cool completely in cold water before shelling.
- Size of a 5s. pieceA five-shilling piece is a crown, about 1.5 inches (38mm) across. Since the recipe allows two fillets per croûton and only six anchovies, it works out at about six croûtons, one per person.
- Two rounds of bread for sixStale, close-crumbed white bread cut a third of an inch (8mm) thick. Day-old bread is essential: fresh crumb soaks up butter and collapses in the pan.
- Anchovies then and nowBeeton means whole salted anchovies packed in barrels, which is why they need boning, washing and filleting. Modern tinned or jarred fillets are already boned and lightly cured; drain them and blot the oil, and skip the washing or you lose most of the flavour.
- Frying in butterButter alone burns before the bread browns through. Clarified butter, or butter with a spoonful of neutral oil, holds up better; fry over moderate heat until an even golden brown on both sides, then drain on paper.
- Assemble cold, serve soonThe recipe says to wait until the croûtons are cold, though it gives no reason; presumably warm bread weeps butter into the egg. Assembled croûtes soften fairly quickly, so top them shortly before they go to table.
- The sieved yolkPressing hard yolk through a fine sieve gives the fluffy crumb later known as a mimosa garnish. A drum sieve or the back of a spoon against a strainer both work; chopping will not give the same texture.
- Cost and titleThe 9d. average cost is Victorian pricing and tells you only that this was a cheap end to a long dinner. Despite the heading, these are croûtes rather than sandwiches.
This belongs to the savoury, the small salty course served near the end of a formal English dinner, after the sweet and before or alongside dessert fruit — a habit largely confined to Britain and generally explained as a way to finish the wine. Anchovy was the workhorse of that course: intensely salted, cheap, long-keeping, and strong enough to register after several richer courses. Barrel-salted anchovies had long been a British pantry staple, and by the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries they were also worked into essences and ketchups, which is why Beeton can assume a cook knows how to bone and fillet them without instruction. The sieved yolk and chopped white finish, later widely known as a mimosa garnish, appears again and again in kitchen manuals of this period; it turned two eggs into something that looked considered on a small round of fried bread.