Anchovy-Wrapped Pilav

alestasturkey
Jul 12
2 min read

I had never eaten a fresh anchovy before I came to Turkey. To me, anchovies were those salty things I asked to be taken off pizzas as a child. As I got older and my tastes broadened, I began to accept anchovies. But still always thought of them as salty, oily, and very, very strong.

So the fresh version surprised me. Unlike the canned variety, they are not so incredibly oily or salty, more meaty and full-flavoured. I liked them. And a good thing too – fresh anchovies are very much the staple food in Turkey’s coastal areas. They feature in the Black Sea region’s signature dish: anchovy wrapped pilav. This has become one of Turkey’s most famous pilavs, really a meal in itself. It’s a little fiddly, but if you can get your fishmonger to prepare your fish for you first, life is golden.

100g butter

2 onions, diced

2 tablespoons pine nuts

2 tablespoons currants

1 ½ cups rice

3 cups water

1 teaspoon dried mint

2 teaspoons allspice

1 teaspoon salt

¼ teaspoon ground black pepper

4 sprigs dill, fronds picked and finely chopped

1 kg fresh anchovies

PRE HEAT THE OVEN TO 180C

Melt the butter in a medium saucepan, then fry the onions until soft. Add the pine nuts and currants, and stir until the pine nuts begin to take colour.

Add the rice and stir until well-coated with the butter mixture. Stir through the mint, allspice, salt and pepper.

Add the water and bring to the boil. Lower the heat and simmer gently with the lid on for 10 minutes. Remove from heat, and allow to stand with the lid for 10 minutes. Then stir through the chopped dill.

Meanwhile, prepare your anchovies. Remove the head and tail, then cut along the underside and open the anchovy out like a book. Remove the innards and backbone, leaving only the double fillet. If you can convince your fishmonger to do this for you, all the better.

Select a small oven-proof dish and grease well. Line the bottom and edges of your dish your anchovy fillets, skin side down, overlapping them slightly so as to leave no spaces.

Spoon your prepared pilav into the anchovy-lined dish, levelling the top. Place a final layer of overlapping anchovy fillets over the top of the pilav to enclose it, this time skin-side out.