This paste, made from anchovies, capers and olive oil, is generally used to accompany a large dish of raw vegetables: carrots, cauliflower, endives, celery, cucumber, tomatoes, radishes, button mushrooms, etc.
You can add hard-boiled eggs, the combination of eggs and anchoïade being a delight !
Anchoïade and its fresh vegetables can be eaten as a main course or as an aperitif (a welcome change from chips and peanuts). It is delicious and, moreover, you will fill you up with vitamins !
This dish is part of the composition of the Lean Provençal Christmas Meal (“Le Gros Souper Provençal”).
Be careful, anchoïade is not to be mixed and must not look like a mousse. It has to keep a certain consistency, otherwise it will become an anchovy mousse.
• Cut the carrots, cucumbers, celery and mushrooms into strips, the tomatoes in half, remove the leaves from the endives, leave the rest as is.
• Desalt the anchovies in jars under cold water.
• Remove the central bone from each fillet, so that the fillets are clean.
• Heat the olive oil in a saucepan over low heat and add the anchovies and capers a little at a time.
• Let it melt, using a spoon to crush the ointment.
• Add a glass of white wine.
• Mix until you obtain a homogeneous paste. You can thicken it with a little flour if you find the result a little liquid.
• Put the anchovy paste in a bowl and add 2 or 3 garlic cloves, pressed with a garlic press or “esquiche ail” as we say in Provence.