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Anchovy Butter
634. Bone three or four anchovies, chop them small, boil some parsley quite green, lay the anchovies and parsley with about two ounces of good fresh butter on a sieve, mix all well together through the sieve, and make it into little pats like butter.
A Victorian compound butter, worked through a sieve rather than beaten. The method is sound; only the tools and the anchovies have changed.
- The anchovies"Bone three or four anchovies" assumes whole salt-cured fish, which need rinsing and filleting. Each fish yields two fillets, so use six to eight tinned fillets, blotted dry, in place of the three or four here.
- Why the parsley is boiledBrief blanching in plenty of water sets the chlorophyll and keeps the butter green rather than khaki. Thirty seconds is enough; drain, squeeze dry in a cloth, then chop, or the water will make the butter split.
- Two ounces of butterAbout 4 tablespoons, or half a stick. That is a small batch by design and is easily doubled. Use unsalted butter and taste before adding salt, since the anchovy carries plenty.
- Butter temperatureThe butter must be properly soft, not melting, or it will not pass the sieve. Leave it at room temperature until it takes a fingerprint easily.
- Instead of the sievePushing everything through a fine sieve with the back of a spoon is what makes the paste smooth and evenly coloured. A small food processor or a mortar does the same work in a minute, though a sieve still catches any stray bone or stem.
- Shaping and keepingRoll the finished paste in parchment into a log, chill until firm, and slice into rounds instead of patting it by hand. It keeps a week refrigerated and freezes for a couple of months.
- Yield and servingThis makes about a third of a cup, enough for four to six servings. Melt a slice over grilled steak, whiting or lamb chops, or spread it thin on hot toast under poached eggs.
Anchovy in some form runs all through nineteenth-century British cooking: anchovy essence, anchovy sauce, anchovy paste and anchovy toast were pantry staples, the domestic descendants of the salted fish that Mediterranean traders had long supplied and the same savoury instinct that produced bottled fish sauces and, later, commercial relishes. Compound butters like this one belonged to the cold-larder end of the kitchen, made up in advance in small pats so a cook could finish a plain grilled chop or fish with something salty and green at the moment of service. The insistence on boiling the parsley "quite green" shows how much the period cared about colour on the plate, and the sieve, rather than a whisk or a knife, was one route to a smooth paste.