‘Something as simple as anchovies on toast can be a real treat.’ Mark Hix

There are many other treats involving anchovies such as teaspoons of Mark Hix’s ‘anchovy ice-cream’ (anchovy fillets pounded with clotted cream and then frozen) on ‘amuse bouche’ size shapes of puff pastry.

The Provençal version of anchovies on toast, anchoide, mixes garlic, olive oil, and a little vinegar with pounded anchovies. As Elizabeth David notes, ‘This is not so much an hors d’oeuvre as the sort of thing to get ready quickly any time you are hungry and want something to go with a glass of wine’. As with all simple recipes, the quality of the ingredients is vital. Sourdough bread toasts well and Ortiz anchovies in olive oil are excellent. I buy mine online.

Anchovies are good with eggs (AK p.133), Caesar salad, salade niçoise, tapenade, in pizzas, in pissaladière (AK p.136) and with broccoli (AK p.50).

Strangely, anchovies work magic when used with meat. It was a trick known to the Romans and also to Messrs Lea & Perrins whose Worcestershire sauce was created in 1837. Slivers of anchovies tucked into the skin of a leg of lamb to be roasted along with garlic and sprigs of rosemary or a round of anchovy butter melting on top of a steak transform the dish.

Montpellier butter or sauce is about as complicated as cooking with anchovies gets. It uses the traditional four ‘fines herbes’ of French haute cuisine.

Montpellier Butter

90g each of tarragon, parsley, chervil. chives, watercress and spinach.
3 small gherkins
9 capers
1 clove garlic
6 anchovy fillets
1 egg yolk
3 hard-boiled eggs
120g unsalted butter, softened
90ml extra virgin olive oil
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
A few drops of white wine vinegar
Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Blanch the herbs, watercress and spinach in boiling water for 30 seconds. Plunge into cold water, then drain and squeeze out as much water as you can.

Purée all the ingredients except the egg yolk, butter, olive oil and vinegar to a smooth paste, then add the butter and egg yolk and purée again. Add the olive oil at a steady trickle. Finally, add the vinegar. Check for seasoning before serving.

This sauce goes well with cold fish and is a pleasant alternative to mayonnaise.