Ninja Anchovies

Now, I'm not the biggest anchovie fan -- keep them off my pizza, in particular, but I appreciate them used in appropriate doses. My wife and sons, however, view all fish as slimy things from the deep (strangely, they have no problem with shellfood).

But in the last three days, I've managed to sneak anchovies into two dishes.

Sunday night, I wanted to cook 'fancy'. I had veal stock in the freezer, a black truffle in a jar, and a bottle of champagne -- risotto time. Along with that, I found a Mario Battali recipe for pork scallopine with a sauce of white wine, prosciutto, lemon zest, capers and anchovy. Substituting some chicken breasts since I'd just made pork chops a few days before, and it made a nice lighter secondo with the risotto primo. The sauce was less "sauce"-like than I'd like, more of wine-with-chopped-stuff-in-it, but it was delicious. They never even noticed the little fishy fiends, ha ha!

Tonight, I had a taste for a real Caesar salad. Skirt steak for the main, and a recipe from Reluctant Gourmet. Now, I didn't fool them this time (bragging about wanting a 'real' Caesar salad), but they sure ate it all up. Nice way to use up leftovers: lemon juice from the naked lemons, minced capers and anchovies from the open containers (actually, I've frozen the remaining little fishies flat in a ziploc for future missions). And wonderful. Nothing like fresh croutons, a zippy emulsion, romaine, and a damn fine steak.

If I could only figure out a way to sneak a salmon steak onto the menu, I'd be fine.

actually, I've frozen the remaining little fishies flat in a ziploc for future missions

Joel, great idea. And I just hate tossing out that half a can of anchovies that I always optimistically put back into the fridge, with best intentions to use while they are still yummy.

A ceasar salad and steak sounds like a great plan for dinner tomorrow. Thanks for the inspiration! --Joy

My freezer door is full of ziplocs of unlabeled leftovers: curry leaves, sage, keffir lime leaves, many others. So far I've never grabbed the wrong bag.

However, I never remember to freeze the rest of the can of chipotle chiles, always thinking like you that I'll use the rest.

Joy wrote:

actually, I've frozen the remaining little fishies flat in a ziploc for future missions

Joel, great idea. And I just hate tossing out that half a can of anchovies that I always optimistically put back into the fridge, with best intentions to use while they are still yummy.

I love anchovies, but it's true that one can only use so many at a time, even if my husband eats them too (not my kids). Last time I bought anchovies in a little bottle of oil, and they kept fine in the fridge door for some weeks that way.

I'd looked at the bottled ones, they ran $3.50 to $4.50 for more anchovies than I could slip into a year's food with a good conscience. The $1.85 tins were just about the right size: I've used half of them, I think, between the two dishes.