Fried anchovies with spicy rémoulade (Pritong dilis)

My love affair with small fried fish started in Chicago with smelts. These seasonal fish would appear briefly in some of the better restaurants, lightly fried with a very thin batter and accompanied by a dip. I have been experimenting with fresh anchovies here in India recently and have fallen in love again with these tiny fish. Sprats and smelt differ from anchovies, though they are often confused and mislabelled.

This recipe is super simple and wonderful. The small anchovies are coated in a lightly spiced batter and pan sautéed; I refuse to deep fry them, even though the original recipe calls for them to be. The crisp fish is served with a piquant mayo dip that brings the fish alive with flavour. The dish is the perfect finger food, with friends getting their fingertips full of mayo. I ate about 20 of these babies, and they were hard to resist, especially with a cold beer or a nice chilled white wine.

This cookbook has been hiding on my shelf, and I am glad I finally took it out and made something from it. It is a wonderful cookbook on authentic Filipino cuisine, complete of recipes and excellent photographs. These islands have a unique cuisine, one that I have had at restaurants and friends' houses. Here is a start for me to delve deeper into this cuisine. The chefs Kim and Miguel have 2 New York restaurants (Maharlika and Jeepney) and are both very actively involved in promoting Filipino food in the US. The Bay Area where I used to live had a vivid Filipino restaurant scene with amazing food.

For more recipes from this cookbook, click here.

Ingredients:

For the spicy rémoulade:

6-10 red Thai chillies

2 teaspoons Maggi seasoning sauce (or see cheat)

1 cup mayonnaise

4 tablespoons cane vinegar or apple cider vinegar

For the dilis:

1 lb cleaned anchovies

Salt, to taste

1 tablespoon pepper

4 tablespoons corn starch

1 tablespoon mild paprika

Frying oil

To make the rémoulade, toast the chillies on high heat in a dry frying pan until charred. Cool completely.

Combine the chilies, Maggi seasoning (or substitute), mayonnaise, and vinegar and blitz until you have a smooth paste. Taste and adjust the heat as desired; the dip should be bright and spicy.

To make the bilis, toss the anchovies with the rest of the ingredients. Heat a wide frying pan with oil and fry the anchovies till they are well cooked and crisp. The original recipe called for them to be deep-fried, but I like to pan-fry them for health reasons.

Serve immediately while the anchovies are still crisp with the dipping sauce on the side.

Note: If you cannot find Maggi seasoning sauce, substitute 50% soy sauce with 50% Worcestershire sauce. I tend to have about 40-50 condiment bottles, almost to the point that I need a new fridge just for this purpose. I will sometimes use a "cheat" rather than buy a condiment that is hard to find or that I may not use often and for which there is a good substitute.