Amazingly good anchovy sauce from Italy’s Amalfi Coast
If you, like me, have a high affection for anchovies, this special sauce from a tiny village on the Amalfi Coast could take your affection for these fine little fish to new heights!
About an hour south of Naples, Cetara is known in the food world for having some of the best seafood in Italy. Old-school anchovies are one of its specialties. Fresh little fish are cleaned as soon as they’re off the boats (which are out fishing only a single night at a time), filleted by hand, and then layered with coarse sea salt into barrels. When the barrel is full, the top is replaced, and rocks are set on it to add steady, gentle pressure. The curing takes at least until the next season a year later, sometimes longer. As the weights press the slowly curing anchovies, liquid collects in the barrels. (Colare means “to drip” in Italian, hence, “colatura.”) Before the finished anchovies are taken out to sell, the slightly fermented liquid is drained off, aged in wood for a bit longer, and then you and I can buy it.
You could actually call colatura convenience food. With a small bottle of it on your counter, some pasta, and a salad, you can craft an exceptional, really world-class meal in minutes. Our colatura comes from the Delfino family, who began bottling the centuries-old “local secret” in 1950. On this side of the Atlantic that year, the McCarthy hearings were starting in Washington; in Asia, the Korean War was under way. In Cetara, though, things were pretty much as they’ve always been. Fishing every day, good cooking every evening, and church every Sunday. The Delfino family are the same folks who make the inspiring IASA peperoncino that I love so much, the beyond amazing spicy red pepper sauce I wrote up last week on that wonderful IASA Taco at the Roadhouse. We also have another colatura on hand from the small family-owned firm of Rizzoli Emmanuele as well.
Using colatura really couldn’t be simpler. Cook some pasta with less salt than you usually would since the colatura will bring its own salinity to the supper. I like bucatini—Rustichella or Gentile brands. Meanwhile, mix some extra virgin olive oil in a bowl with some colatura (at about a two-to-one ratio). Add chopped fresh parsley, some slivered garlic, and some peperoncino. Add a touch of the pasta cooking water and whisk until it’s smooth. When the pasta is very al dente, take it right out and mix it ASAP with the oil and colatura mixture. It’s very good topped with toasted breadcrumbs.
Alternatively, try brushing the bread of a grilled cheese (fresh mozzarella is marvelous) with colatura while it’s still hot, right after it comes out of the pan. Toss cubes of olive oil-fried Paesano or Rustic Italian bread with colatura and black pepper to make the best Caesar salad croutons you’ll come across. Rolando Beramendi, my friend, food guru, author of Autentico, and all-around really good guy, has a wonderful recipe in his book for a thick, hearty farro soup that gets finished with a drizzle of colatura. Colatura is also excellent drizzled over fish, sautéed or roasted vegetables, or mashed potatoes.
