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Anchovy Canapés
6 portions prepared bread
3 teaspoons lemon-juice
3 tablespoons anchovy paste 2 hard-cooked eggs Garnish of whole anchovies (may be omitted) Anchovies are small fish which are salted and preserved. Anchovy paste, which comes in tubes, jars or bottles, may be utilized, or whole anchovies may be reduced to a smooth paste with a wooden spoon. Season with lemon-juice and spread the paste on the prepared pieces of bread. Split two anchovies lengthwise and lay them diagonally across the canapé, marking the point where they cross by a little pyramid of riced yolk of hard-cooked eggs. Petal-shaped pieces of the hard-cooked white may radiate from this center pyramid. The anchovies may be omitted in the decoration. A large anchovy curved around a circle of hard-cooked egg in the center of a canapé is also effective.
A straightforward assembly job whose only real technique is the garnish. The main thing the modern reader needs is the book's shorthand for "prepared bread."
- "Prepared bread"In books of this period this generally means bread sliced thin, crusts removed, cut into small rounds, diamonds or strips, then toasted or fried and cooled. A crisp, cold base holds up under the paste better than soft bread.
- Anchovy paste todayTubed anchovy paste is still sold. Three tablespoons across six canapés is a lot; start with two and taste, or cut the paste with an equal volume of softened butter, which makes it spread cleanly.
- Whole salted anchoviesIf you mash your own from salt-packed fish, rinse them well and soak 10-20 minutes in cold water or milk before pounding, otherwise the salt overwhelms everything. Oil-packed fillets need only draining and blotting.
- Lemon-juice ratioThree teaspoons of juice to three tablespoons of paste is roughly one part acid to three parts paste, which is bracing but correct here since the salt and fat need cutting. Add it gradually and stop when the paste is glossy rather than loose.
- "Riced" yolkPush the hard-cooked yolk through a fine sieve or a ricer to get the light, sandy crumb that will hold a small pyramid shape. A box grater gives a coarser result that will not mound.
- TimingAssemble no more than an hour ahead and keep chilled and covered. The lemon juice and the moisture from the egg white both soften the base, so the garnish should go on last.
- YieldSix canapés, which in modern terms is a nibble for two or three people rather than six portions of anything. Multiply freely; the paste keeps a couple of days refrigerated.
Canapés of this kind were a familiar feature of American household manuals in the early decades of the twentieth century, when formal dinner service still opened with something small, salty and served cold on toast before the soup. Anchovy paste in tubes was among the convenience products a home cook could reach for. The decorative instructions, with their crossed fillets, pyramids of sieved yolk and petals of egg white, belong to a tradition of restrained garde-manger garnishing, scaled down for a home kitchen. Butterick was better known for dress patterns.