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Trout with Anchovies
(Trota alle acciughe) Scale, clean wash and wipe the trouts. Cut the sides and place to pickle with salt, pepper berries, garlic, parsley and onions chopped fine; with mushrooms chopped fine with thyme, bay-leaf and mint, all seasoned with good olive oil. Rub the pickled pieces at the sieve and place it and the trout in a baking-tin. Bake in the oven and serve with anchovy sauce (No. 17). 178
A terse translation from Maria Gentile's book, with the usual gaps: no quantities, no temperature, no time. The method is simply a marinated, herb-crusted baked trout finished with anchovy sauce.
- "Place to pickle" means marinateNo vinegar or brine is involved despite the word. The chopped aromatics and oil are a wet rub; half an hour at room temperature or up to two hours refrigerated is plenty for a whole trout.
- "Cut the sides"Most likely a direction to slash the thickest part of each flank two or three times down to the bone, though the phrase is ambiguous. Slashing lets the marinade reach the flesh and keeps the skin from splitting as the fish contracts.
- Pepper berriesWhole peppercorns, crushed rather than finely ground. Crack them coarsely so they distribute through the herb mixture.
- "Rub the pickled pieces at the sieve"Press the marinade through a sieve, i.e. work the herb, mushroom and onion mixture through to a coarse paste and spread that over and around the fish in the tin along with the oil that comes through.
- Oven temperatureThe original gives none. A hot oven, around 400-425F, suits the dish: the fish is thin and wants speed so the flesh does not dry before the crust sets.
- TimingA 10-12 oz whole trout takes 15-20 minutes at 400F, longer for a fish over a pound. It is done when the flesh at the backbone has just turned opaque, about 145F; the dorsal fin should pull free cleanly.
- Quantities to assumeFor two trout: 2 tablespoons olive oil, 1 small onion, 1 clove garlic, a handful of parsley, 4 oz mushrooms, a sprig of thyme, one bay leaf and a few mint leaves. Mint is easy to overdo here; keep it to three or four leaves.
- The anchovy sauceThe recipe cross-refers to Sauce No. 17 in the same book, which is not reproduced here. Anchovy sauces of this kind should be warmed and never boiled, or the anchovy turns bitter and the fat separates; serve it spooned over at the table, not baked with the fish.
- YieldOne trout per person, served as a second course after a pasta or soup course rather than as the whole meal.
The Italian Cook Book, compiled by Maria Gentile and published in New York in 1919; its abrupt, compressed instructions read like notes taken from someone who already knew the dish. Trout was associated with the mountain and river cooking of the north -- Piedmont, Lombardy, the Trentino -- where freshwater fish supplied the fish course, though freshwater fish were eaten well beyond those regions. Anchovy here is doing the work of a seasoning rather than a fish: salted anchovies were a pantry staple the length of Italy, cheap, shelf-stable and used to give depth to butter sauces, vegetable dishes and greens. The pairing of a mild freshwater fish with a salt-cured sea fish is an old piece of Italian economy, and the separate numbered sauce -- made once and drawn on by many recipes -- reflects the way these books were organised around a small repertoire of foundational preparations.