Name: Sprats As Anchovies
Ingredients: 1 peck fine fresh sprats; 1 lb coarse sea salt; 2 oz saltpetre; 1 lb coarse sea salt (formerly 'bay salt'); 2 oz sal-prunelle; 2 oz finely powdered cochineal; 1 quart distilled water; pennyworth of bright red bole armeniac

Sprats As Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the sprats

Select small sprats and remove heads and guts without washing or wiping.
Mix the coarse sea salt, saltpetre, bay salt, sal-prunelle, and cochineal thoroughly before layering.

Layer and seal

Layer the sprats in a wide jar, sprinkling the salt mixture between layers.
Press down the contents and fill the jar to the top, covering with bay salt.
Seal the jar with bladder or leather.

Add the liquid

After three months, dissolve the bole armeniac in distilled water and pour it over the sprats.
Turn the jar upside down to ensure the liquid saturates the fish.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

What each ingredient does

Sprats: The fish being cured, forming the body of the finished preserve.
Saltpetre: Helps preserve the fish and gives it a firm, cured character during curing.
Cochineal: Adds a red colour to the fish, matching the anchovy-like appearance.
Bole armeniac: Clay-based red pigment dissolved in water to colour the finished liquid and fish.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.