I’ve been celebrating two of my favourite piscine partnerships in the kitchen this week. Both of them classics, but also somewhat Marmite. You either love or hate them: the marriage of potatoes and anchovy, and the more controversial one of seafood cooked with bacon.
The anchovy and the potato couldn’t be happier than when in one another’s company. From the sublime Jansson’s temptation, with its grated potatoes, cream and darling salty little fish to a salsa verde dressing for a warm, crumbly potato salad, the spud and the anchovy were always meant to be together.
As someone who regularly wolfs the dark and slippery fillets straight from the tin, I was surprised I chose the milder, silvery marinated sort to go on a potato dish this week. But they looked irresistible arranged in such soldierly fashion in a dish at the deli counter and the hit of vinegar that came with them worked nicely with the crisp, olive-oily slices of potato I had roasted. Maybe I should use them more often.
I sometimes make a warm anchovy dressing to go over new potatoes (olive oil, mashed anchovies, parsley and red-wine vinegar), and an anchovy butter (chopped dill, anchovies, capers and butter) is a favourite one to perk up a mashed potato. I sometimes wish someone would make anchovy-flavoured potato crisps.
I love fish either cooked in or dressed with sizzling bacon fat. There are many classic examples of this particular partnership. I started years ago with a sandwich of smoked salmon and crisp streaky bacon, then progressed to prawns wrapped in thin rashers of pancetta and Scottish herrings in oatmeal with curls of crisp back bacon. I now regularly marry the two, from tiny cubes of air-dried ham in a clam chowder to the charm of diminutive dice of aromatic pancetta in the sauce to accompany tiny scallops.
I have blitzed back bacon with breadcrumbs for a crisp, crumbling crust for grilled oysters and have chucked it into moules marinières from time to time. Mussels wrapped in rashers is a classic savoury from the early part of last century. The salty quality of the meat seems to emphasise the sweetness of the fish. This week I fried chopped smoked rashers and their fat until totally crisp and tossed them with crisp(ish) shredded kale before serving it with a shallow-fried sea bass. A dinner of delightful contrasts, sweet and toothsome: a celebration of an extraordinary friendship.
Potatoes, anchovies and dill
Constantly on the search for something hot to serve with cold meats on a Monday, this week I made these sliced potato crisps baked in olive oil and sharpened up with tiny anchovies and capers. Marinated anchovy fillets are available at supermarkets and good food shops.
Serves 3-4
potatoes 450g, floury and white-fleshed potatoes, such as Maris Pipers
olive oil 4 tbsp
rosemary 2 large sprigs
marinated anchovies 6
dill a handfu
capers 1 tbsp
Set the oven at 200C/gas mark 6. Scrub the potatoes thoroughly, then slice them thinly – the thickness of a pound coin would be about right. Put the slices into a mixing bowl and add the olive oil, salt, black pepper and the whole rosemary sprigs. Toss the potatoes to coat them evenly with the oil and seasoning.
On a nonstick baking sheet, place the potato slices in a single layer, slightly overlapping here and there. Make sure the surface of the potatoes is covered with a little oil, then tuck the rosemary among them and bake for about 25-30 minutes until pale gold and lightly crisp here and there.
Ideally the cooked potatoes will be crisp in parts and softer in others. Remove the baking sheet from the oven, then place the anchovies on top. Pull tufts of leaves from the dill and scatter over the potatoes, then finally add the capers and serve, broken into pieces.
Sea bass, bacon and kale
I say kale, but you could use a dark-leafed cabbage instead if you wish.
Serves 2
sea bass 2 large fillets, 350g filleted weight, skin on
bacon 200g, smoked streaky rashers
butter 30g
olive or groundnut oil 2 tbsp
kale 150g
lemon ½
Cut the bacon into pieces the size of a postage stamp, then fry them until crisp. Remove the bacon from the pan and place on kitchen paper.
Check the fish carefully for any stray bones. Warm the butter and oil in a second pan, add the fish and cook for 3-4 minutes. Turn carefully and cook the other side, spooning the butter over as it cooks.
While the sea bass cooks, wash the kale, remove and discard the toughest of the stalks, then shred very finely. Warm the pan in which you cooked the bacon, together with any remaining bacon fat, over a moderate heat, then add the kale and cook until crisp. Briefly return the bacon to the pan.
Squeeze the lemon half over the fish. Season the kale with black pepper and a very little salt. Transfer the fish to warm plates, then pile the kale and bacon on top of the cooked sea bass, spooning over the bacon fat from the pan.
Email Nigel at nigel.slater@observer.co.uk or visit theguardian.com/profile/nigelslater for all his recipes in one place. Follow Nigel on Twitter @NigelSlater
