Milanese Montadito: Last Night's Pasta Sauce for This Evening's Tapa
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A little fish from Spain, a little sauce from Italy, a little bread from the bakery down the street. You have yourself a tapa.
The sauce for Pasta Milanese last night becomes a perfect tapa topping the next, a harmonious combination of spicy red pepper flakes, sweet tomatoes, and salty Cantabrian anchovy fillets.
Montadito Milanese
Total Time: an hour last night, but tonight just the amount of time it takes to grab it from the refrigerator and slice up the bread.
Ingredients
- Donostia Foods Cantabrian Anchovy Fillets
- yellow onion, diced
- fennel bulb, also diced
- garlic cloves, this one? minced
- fennel seeds
- freshly ground black pepper
- sea salt
- Donostia Foods Extra Virgin Olive Oil
- white wine
- San Marzano tomatoes
- toasted breadcrumbs
- a nice fresh loaf
Directions
1. We used an adaptation of a recipe by chef Nick Lama of Avo in New Orleans from the Wall Street Journal (subscription maybe required). For the details, please see the article.
2. Basically, you're putting a few anchovies, olive oil, onion, fennel, and garlic in a pot until golden, then adding fennel seed, black and red pepper, then some white wine, followed by hand-crushed (very satisfying) tomatoes. Simmer and stir for 45 minutes or so.
3. Put it in the fridge over night.
4. For the tapa, simply put a heaping spoonful on fresh crusty bread or toast, and artfully place Cantabrian anchovy fillets on top of that heaping spoonful. Toasted breadcrumbs go on top of that.
A meal one night, an appetizer the next. Not a bad deal.
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For additional recipes and serving suggestions for Spanish conservas, please see our aptly named Recipes & Serving Suggestions page.
Also in Txoko para Todos: A Food Blog for All
+About
One afternoon not that long ago, A.J. Weiss was sitting in a cafe, tapping his pen on an empty note pad, and staring out the window. The prior accumulated years of adventure, heartbreak, and common drudgery had all amounted to this, a particular moment, for reasons both unknown and fairly straightforward. The most straightforward being that he worked at Blue Planet Foods, Ltd., importer of high-quality food products and ingredients, and that he had set forth to complete the task of conjuring a suitable name for the company's new Spanish specialty food brand. After a certain amount of consideration and voluminous list-making, Donostia Foods came to be.
What was the inspiration for this (superb) brand name? Donostia-San Sebastián, a small coastal city in Basque Country in northern Spain, renowned for its restaurants, gastronomic societies, and culinary traditions. A place where locals and visitors alike wander the cobblestones of the old town in the warm evening light, drifting amongst the pintxo bars to sample unparalleled small-bites accompanied by the effervescent local wine, txakoli, and sharing in the laughter that becomes the fondest of memories; a place that exudes good food, good drinks, and a general sense of revelry. All of which is quite enjoyable.
With Donostia Foods we hope to introduce more people in the United States to the gastronomic pleasures of Donostia-San Sebastián and Spain as a whole, with a continually expanding product line of the best examples of the best products we can find and with the conviviality of the place itself.
Thank you for your interest in Donostia Foods, and if there's anything we can do for you, please contact us.
A.J. Weiss in the village of Espelette in Basque Country.
