Home › Canapes › Anchovy Canapes
Anchovy Canapes
Toast rounds of white bread to a nice even brown; place two boneless anchovies on a round of toast, and sprinkle over same the yolks of hard-boiled eggs; dust with white pepper and garnish with a slice of lemon.
A five-minute canapé that depends almost entirely on the quality of the anchovies and the dryness of the toast.
- "Boneless anchovies"Most likely fillets lifted off the backbone, whether salt-packed (rinsed before use) or the oil-packed tinned fillets that were also available. Oil-packed tinned fillets are the practical equivalent; if you use salt-packed, soak them 20 minutes in cold water or milk, then pat dry.
- Toast roundsCut 1½–2 inch rounds from firm white sandwich bread with a cutter or a glass, then toast. Cutting after toasting tears the crumb. Dry the rounds well — a limp base collapses under the oil from the fillets.
- Sieve the yolk"sprinkle over" suggests a fine scattering of yolk rather than coarse chopped egg. Pushing a cooled hard-boiled yolk through a fine sieve or grating it on a microplane gives the finest result.
- White pepper, deliberatelyWhite pepper -- the recipe calls for it specifically; one likely reason is appearance, since black specks would show against the pale yolk and lemon. Use it sparingly and add no salt, as the fillets carry plenty.
- Lemon garnishA slice on a 2-inch round is unwieldy. A thin half-slice cut and twisted, or a narrow wedge set at the edge, gives the same effect and lets the eater squeeze it.
- Yield and timingTwo fillets per round means a 50 g tin covers roughly 5-6 canapes. Assemble shortly before serving; the toast softens quickly once the fish is on it.
- A note on the leftover whitesThe recipe uses yolks only. The whites, finely chopped, can be sprinkled alongside for contrast if you do not want to waste them.
Canapes -- the French word means "couch" or "sofa," and the culinary sense is usually explained as the bread serving as the couch for the savoury item, though this explanation is traditional rather than documented. Canapes appear in English-language cookbooks from the later nineteenth century, alongside the fashion for small savoury bites before or after a long meal. Anchovy was a common choice: it was one of the few strongly savoury fish preparations keeping year-round in a keg or tin before refrigeration was widespread, and it turns up throughout Anglo-American cooking of the period as paste, as essence, and as a sauce. The lemon and the sieved yolk belong to the decorative plating of the period.