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Essence of Anchovies

A liquid flavoring made by boiling anchovy bones and pulp with salt, water, and flour, then colored with Venetian red.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 5 ingredients
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Essence of Anchovies

Ingredients

Directions

Prepare the fish

  1. Remove the bones from the anchovies and pulp the fish through a fine sieve.

Make the essence

  1. Boil the bones with the salt in the water.

  2. Strain the mixture and add the flour and fish pulp.

  3. Boil again and pass the whole mixture through the sieve.

  4. Color with Venetian red to your preference.

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

Anchovies
Provide the main fish flavor and pulp that gives the essence its body.
Flour
Thickens the liquid so the pulp stays suspended and the essence has more body.
Coarse sea salt
Seasons the bone broth and helps draw flavor out of the bones.

The step that matters

Boil again and pass the whole mixture through the sieve. Boiling thickens the flour so the mixture becomes smooth and body-rich. Passing it through the sieve while still hot removes remaining solids so the essence stays fine and even.

“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.

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