🇪🇸 Spain · Family: Entrepà · Region: Catalonia · Bread: barra · Proteins: anchovy
The Entrepà d'Anxoves is the Catalan anchovy sandwich: preserved anchovies laid on crusty bread, very often with tomato. It is a spare, salt-forward entrepà that lives or dies on the quality of the anxoves, the salt-cured-then-oil-packed fillets that Catalonia treats as a serious ingredient rather than a garnish. This is one of the most minimal sandwiches in the Spanish-Catalan range, a few fillets and good bread, and that minimalism is the point: there is nothing to hide a poor anchovy or a tired loaf behind.
The construction is short, so each part is exposed. A length of crusty baguette-style bread is split and, in the Catalan way, the open crumb is usually rubbed with ripe tomato and dressed with olive oil, the pa amb tomàquet base that the anchovy is built on. Drained anchovy fillets are then laid the full length of the loaf, spaced so there is fish in every bite rather than clustered at the centre, and that is essentially the whole sandwich. Good execution uses plump, well-cured fillets in good oil, lays them end to end, and lets the tomato and oil soften and round the salt so the result is savoury rather than punishing. Sloppy execution is harsh, over-salty or mushy anchovies, too few of them lost in the middle of the loaf, or dry untreated bread with no tomato or oil to carry the fish. Because there are so few components, a mediocre tin of anchovies cannot be rescued by anything else on the counter.
The variations stay close to the spare base. Some builds add roasted or piquillo peppers, whose sweetness plays directly against the salt; others add a few olives, sliced egg, or a thread of vinegar. It is usually served cold so the fish stays firm and the tomato fresh. The wider Catalan entrepà in all its filled forms, and the escalivada-and-anchovy flatbread known as coca de recapte, are separate things that each deserve their own article rather than being crowded in here. What makes an Entrepà d'Anxoves is genuinely good preserved anchovies on tomato-rubbed crusty bread; get the fish and the loaf right and almost nothing else needs to happen.
More from this family
Other Entrepà sandwiches in Spain: