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Anchovy Toast with Spinach
Press cooked spinach, chopped fine, through a purée sieve; reheat with a little butter, salt and two or three drops of tobasco sauce. Sauté rounds of bread to a golden brown in a little hot butter, spread with anchovy paste, and over this spread the purée of spinach. Press into the spinach on each round of bread a quarter of a hard-boiled egg cut lengthwise, having the yolk uppermost.
A chafing-dish savoury that assumes you already have cooked spinach and a tin of anchovy paste on hand. It comes together in minutes once those two things exist.
- The purée sieveThe puree sieve -- a sieve through which the spinach is pressed, usually with a wooden pestle or mushroom; a food mill or a few pulses in a processor does the same work. The result wanted is a puree stiff enough to hold its shape on the toast rather than a loose creamed spinach.
- Squeeze the spinach hardThis is the hinge. Cooked spinach holds an astonishing amount of water, and any of it left in will soak straight through the fried bread. Wring it in a towel before it goes near the sieve.
- QuantitiesNone are given. Reckon on roughly 1 lb fresh spinach (or a 10 oz block of frozen, thawed and squeezed, which will give a little more) for six to eight rounds, with a tablespoon of butter.
- Anchovy pasteStill sold in tubes, and salty enough to season the whole mouthful. Spread it thin and hold back the salt in the spinach until you have tasted the two together.
- "Tobasco sauce"The spelling is a period variant; the sauce is the Louisiana pepper sauce still sold. Two or three drops reads as timid but is enough to register against the anchovy.
- The breadCut rounds from a firm white loaf, a little under half an inch thick, and sauté in clarified butter or butter with a spoonful of oil so it browns rather than burns. They should be crisp all the way through, since they will be sitting under a wet topping.
- The egg quarterCut lengthwise so the wedge sits yolk-up like a sail. Boil the eggs 10 minutes and cool them fully or the yolks will crumble when you press them in.
- ServingLikely a savoury or supper dish rather than a first course; allow about two rounds a head. Assemble at the last moment and serve at once.
Anchovy toast belongs to the English savoury tradition, the small hot salty course served at the end of dinner and, in America around 1900, at suppers and after-theatre parties. Potted and tubed anchovy pastes were among the early shelf-stable convenience foods, and Gentleman's Relish (sold in its small pots) and its imitators put a strong salt-and-fish note within easy reach. The chafing dish was fashionable in this period partly because it let a hostess cook in front of guests without a servant, which suited dishes built from things already cooked: leftover spinach, hard-boiled eggs, a tin of paste. Tabasco, on the market from the late 1860s, spread widely in American kitchens over the following decades.