Butter and anchovies, two recipes rich in flavor

Well yes, butter and anchovies are an international trend. In the USA, it all started during the pandemic, when Tiktok fed the interest on the subject, inviting to share videos on canned fish evenings, complete with reviews and recipes. Subsequently, the restaurants began to offer the combination in their menus, a luxurious canned fish market opened in New York – even in Times Square (The Fantastic World of the Portuguese Sardine) – and now there are also vegan options , subscription services and dedicated cookbooks. The archaeologist Christopher Beckman has even published an essay on the ancient Roman condiment – today considered a Superfood -, telling its gastronomic evolution (A Twist in the Tail). But it is above all in Spain that in recent times the combination has conquered chefs and demanding palates: the well -known trafalgar bar of Madrid offers a hot brioche pan surmounted by an excitement and a generous piece of cold butter, immediately which became viral; Always in the city, the emerging Gilda Haus Azzarda anchovies caliber 0 on brioche pan, Crème Fraîchepowder butter (discovered at the Vallehermoso market) and lemon zest. While in Barcelona, ​​the Smokehouse rooftop sublimates the anchovies by preserving them in the smoked butter, a fusion of flavors that combines the umami of the fish with the depth of the smoke.

An Italian classic

Here you fly high, in short, even if the simple combination already works of its own. As Julius Caesar even sensed – when he tastned the butter for the first time during a banquet in Milan and had the idea of ​​spreading him on the bread with a veil of Garum, a salad condiment based on salty fish – in fact, in fact, a timeless triptych. To confirm that it is a party for the palate is the Tuscan restaurateur Alberto Galli: «Several years ago I was lunch with some people and I read a dish on the menu that I have not seen for years and that I ate as a child: bread, butter and anchovies, “he says. «I decided to order it and I was totally kidnapped by that crouton, so much so that I completely estrange myself from the speech. I thought then that if one day I had opened a restaurant, I would have called him his own butter and anchovies ». Well, the restaurant He opened in Florence nine years ago, in the Oltrarno: 45 covered, well -kept fish cuisine that ranges from the chopped cod with chickpea and black cabbage to the oysters Gillarddeau; From the hats stuffed with tuna with turnip greens cream with grilled squid with Roman artichokes. “The menu changes three, four times a year”, Galli continues, “but the anchovies, fried anchovies, marinated anchovies and spaghetti with anchovies are always on paper”. Fortunately. And since in reality of butter and anchovies we are talking, here are the two recipes that see them protagonists in the homonymous restaurant in Florence.

Cantabric butter and anchovies with hot bread

For two kilos of bread:

• 700g flour 00
• 1 kg of Red Caputo flour (260W)
• 300 g of Caputo cereals
• 20g of dry yeast
• 1.2 liters of water

For the dressing:

• Qb anchovies of the cantabric
• QB Loire butter

Procedure:

1. Knead all the flours in the planetary mixer with 2 thirds of water and completed by adding the remaining water with 40g of salt.
2. Let the dough rise in the refrigerator for 24 hours at 4 degrees.
3. Form the strands and make a second leavening until the volume of the strands doubles.
4. Bake the bread in the oven at 200/210 degrees for 10 minutes.
5. When cooked, brush the surface of the strands with extra virgin olive oil.
6. Slice the bread and serve hot, accompanying curls of butter and anchovies.

Spaghetti with cantabric anchovies, pine nuts and toast black bread crumbs

Courtesy butter and anchovies

Ingredients for 4 people:

• 200 grams of chantentes Poitou Aoc Dolce butter (France)
• 100 grams of anchovies of the cantabric in oil
• 80 grams of toasted cereal bread crumbs (same crouton bread)
• 20 grams of toasted Mediterranean pine nuts
• QB vegetable broth
• QB Key butter (you can prepare in advance and freeze)
• 400 grams of spaghetti

Procedure:

1. Boil the water with little salt and add the spaghetti to the pot.
2. Dissate the anchovies with parsley garlic in a pan and a little oil.
3. Add vegetable broth and risotto the spaghetti drained by the pot a few minutes before the end of cooking.
4. Manteca outside flame in a container the pasta with butter with the previously flavored and frozen excitement, once served sprinkled with the dish with the toasted bread crumbs and pine nuts.