Anchoiade

Overview

Anchoiade is a Provencal dip in which anchovies lead the flavour. It is a paste of anchovy, garlic and capers worked into olive oil until creamy. Anchovy, not olive, is the main ingredient, which separates it from tapenade and gives it a sharper, saltier character.

It is served as an aperitif with vegetables and bread, and it appears on tables across Provence as a shared dish rather than as a sauce for a main course.

Name and history

The name is the Provencal form of anchovy and the paste that is made from it. The cited page presents it as a traditional recipe of the region and gives no date. Some recipe sites associate it with Collioure on the Mediterranean coast, but published accounts read here do not confirm that, and no history from before the modern period is documented in them.

Anchoiade should not be confused with bagna cauda, which is a warm Piedmontese dip of anchovy and garlic in oil, or with garum, a fermented fish sauce. Anchoiade uses an existing salted fish, not a fermentation of its own.

Ingredients and their roles

Salted anchovies carry most of the flavour and salt. They are desalted before use so that the paste is savoury rather than harsh, and the cited page advises salted anchovies for stronger flavour. Garlic gives the pungent base, and the amount given runs from eight to ten cloves. Capers add a sharp, briny note. Olive oil binds the mixture and gives it body when it is drizzled in while blending.

Vinegar, mustard and olives are optional. The cited page offers them as adjustments to taste, not as part of the base recipe.

Method

Garlic is peeled and its germ removed. The anchovies are soaked in water or milk for about thirty minutes to remove salt, then drained thoroughly. Anchovies and capers are mashed or blended with the garlic until smooth. The oil is then added slowly so that the paste emulsifies into a creamy dip. A mortar is the traditional tool and a blender the alternative.

Desalting matters because the salt level of salted anchovies varies, and the cook adjusts the paste by taste afterwards.

Serving

The cited page lists raw vegetables such as carrot, celery, cauliflower, radish, cucumber, pepper, artichoke leaves and cherry tomato. Bread, toast, farmhouse loaf, focaccia and fougasse are the usual base, along with quartered hard-boiled eggs and raw button mushrooms. Pasta is mentioned as an accompaniment. Rose wines from Provence are suggested to drink with it.

Storage and safety

The cited page gives no storage time. A garlic and oil paste is a food-safety concern at room temperature, so the paste should be kept refrigerated and not left out between servings. Published accounts read here set no holding limit.

Desalting the anchovies is a flavour step, not a safety control. The page does not describe the effect of desalting on keeping quality.

Unknowns

The date of anchoiade, its earliest documented form, its place names and the base quantities behind the ten-person amounts are not established by the pages read. A Provencal food-history source and a second published recipe would be the next research steps.