Can I inter­est you in some hairy fish?

This mis­un­der­stood mem­ber of the her­ring fam­ily packs a huge punch. And when served improp­erly, an anchovy can leave an indeli­bly unfa­vor­able mark upon your pal­let. But con­sider this – when served prop­erly, they pro­vide the fla­vor that makes cae­sar salad taste like cae­sar salad. In fact, sci­en­tists con­sider the intense and supe­rior taste of an anchovy to pos­sess “umami” – a fla­vor that is nei­ther sweet, sour, bit­ter or salty, but sim­ply savory. Umami can also be found in parme­san cheese. So remov­ing the cheese, but keep­ing the anchovy paste tricks the palette into tast­ing that it’s still there. Don’t believe me? Give it a try.

And that hair? It’s actu­ally tiny bones that pro­trude from the body of the fish. I know…I’m really not sell­ing anchovies as well as I might, but it’s worth know­ing that these bones are eas­ily digested because they are so tiny and the salt­ing process soft­ens them.  You, how­ever, in the mak­ing of this deli­cious salad dress­ing, don’t have to con­cern your­self with any­thing other than find­ing a small tube of anchovy paste at your mar­ket. I go to Lit­tle Italy in San Diego to a lovely gourmet shop to get mine. The ingre­di­ents should include noth­ing more than anchovies, olive oil and salt. And it’s a bar­gain at $2.49 for a 2 oz. tube.

This recipe makes a cup of dress­ing. If you are going to use only a por­tion of it, I would rec­om­mend adding the anchovy paste only to the por­tion you serve because the anchovy fla­vor that is per­fect for serv­ing the day you make it, will inten­sify the next.

So be brave, and you’ll be so sur­prised at how deli­cious this is. If you can tol­er­ate cheese, the parme­san is won­der­ful, how­ever, a whole slew of 12 and 13 year old girls love this sans the dairy! And for you kids out there who need some­thing tasty to dip your car­rots and cel­ery into, give this dress­ing a try.

Prep time:  8 min­utes
Total time: 8 min­utes
Yield: 1 cup

1 c. home­made may­on­naise or Veg­anaise 
2–3 T lemon juice
1 large gar­lic clove, crushed
1 1/2 inches of anchovy paste, squeezed from the tube
lots of freshly ground pep­per
2 T c. grated parme­san cheese optional

1. Mix every­thing together in bowl, whisk­ing until thor­oughly com­bined. Taste and make sea­son­ing cor­rec­tions to your spe­cific taste. I like mine really lemony, with lots of gar­lic, so one clove may not be enough.