[173—ANCHOVIES (FILLETS OF)]
Whether they be for hors d’œuvres or for culinary use, it is always best to have these handy.
After having washed and well wiped them, in order to remove the white powder resulting from the little scales with which they are covered, they should be neatly trimmed to the shape of extended oblongs. Then detach the fillets from the bones by gentle pulling, divide each fillet lengthwise into three or four smaller fillets, put the latter into a small narrow dish or a little bowl, and cover them with oil. The fillets may also be kept whole with a view to rolling them into rings.
[174—ANGLAISE (FOR EGG-AND-BREAD-CRUMBING)]
It is well to have this always ready for those dishes which are to be panés à l’anglaise, or as many of the recipes direct: treated à l’anglaise.
[71]
]It is made of well-whisked eggs, salt, pepper, and one dessertspoonful of oil per couple of eggs.
Its Uses.—The solids to be panés à l’anglaise are dipped into the preparation described above, taking care that the latter coats them thoroughly; whereupon, according to the requirements, they are rolled either in bread-crumbs or in fine raspings. From this combination of egg with bread-crumbs or raspings there results a kind of coat which, at the moment of contact with the hot fat, is immediately converted into a resisting crust. In croquettes this crust checks the escape, into the fat, of the substances it encloses, and this is more especially the case when the croquettes contain some reduced sauce, or are composed of raw meats or fish whose juices are thereby entirely retained. A solid prepared à l’anglaise and cooked in fat should always be put into the latter when this is very hot, so as to ensure the instantaneous solidification of the egg and bread-crumbs.
N.B.—Objects to be treated à l’anglaise are generally rolled in flour before being immersed in the [anglaise], for the flour helps the foregoing to adhere to the object.
The crust formed over the solid thus acquires a density which is indispensable.