Flash-Roasted Fresh Anchovy “Birds”

What about dinner cooked in 2 min? I am not talking fancy gadgets. I only mean humble little fishes plus a bunch of greens, sharp knife and red-hot oven! The meal that comes as a result is so quick that before you know you become addicted to making and eating it. I can tell because I have been cooking it all winter. And instead of simply giving you the recipe I want to share with you three simple principles I follow when I make a quick dinner (=very often).

There are many valid ways to conceive and execute a quick dinner. What is yours? Frozen meal cooked in a microwave? Smart gadgets such as slow cooker or multicooker that does everything you have no time / idea how to do? Bulking the preparation on a weekend to have all the ingredients washed, peeled and chopped in the deep-freezer? Batch cooking once and eating the whole week? Thoughtfully stocked pantry that has all the ingredients you might need to compose a quick dinner whenever a cooking inspiration or hunger strikes? Ordering in?

For me cooking a quick dinner means following 3 principles:

• Knowing your kitchen appliances
• Understanding key ingredients
• Building a satisfying flavor

Let me walk you through each of these quick dinner principle to explain how I came up with my flash-roasted fresh anchovy “birds”.

Knowing your kitchen appliances

Through helping at the kitchen of my mother-in-law’s restaurant, I got introduced to the magic of high heat. The industrial-type stoves have heat so high that you’d burn anything you cook if you are to follow your normal routine. Last week I was making Turkish coffee in cezve, a tiny copper pot. I had to use to lowest heat possible.. and still I was holding cezve 20 cm above the flame to make sure the coffee does not boil.

High-heat helps restaurant cooks turn your order in 10 minutes instead of 40 you’d spend cooking at home (and of course, they prepped the ingredients before, and professional cooks are super fast).

High-heat cooking (aka stir-frying) mesmerized me when we traveled to Thailand: on a street I could just stop by a stir-fry stall and forever watch a master taming the flame of a gas burner. Seeing a meal with protein and all cooked in minutes has forever changed my picture of the world.

While using high-heat on your stove takes a skill and pre-caution, it is extremely easy to take advantage of the high heat in your oven and go flash roasting. Just pre-heat your oven to its maximum temperature as you are prepping the ingredients, and you are half-way towards the quickest meal of your life.

Understanding key ingredients

Some ingredients are meant to be cooked for long. Think beans: those guys take forever! Unless you own a pressure-cooker, which brings us back to principle one (know your kitchen appliances and utensils). As a rule of thumb, to cook something quick you need to prep it into to small pieces. If the fish is already small, there is little left to prep!

You can use fresh sardines or other small fish available to you, but you might know that over here we are obsessed with the little beauties from the Black Sea and would not trade fresh anchovy for anything else. Ok, maybe for kalkan, Black Sea turbot, another mouthwatering treat.

Most often in Turkey we coat anchovy in corn flour and deep-fry or pan-fry them: that’s quick as you only need to remove fish heads and guts, plus there is a visually appealing trick of flipping the pinwheel-fashioned fishes once they cook on one side. But I am not after telling you how to fry fish here. Plus, we do much more interesting tricks with transforming the little fishes in the full-fledged meals such as anchovy coated pilaf or anchovy stew.

Another way to handle anchovy that fascinates me beyond words is anchovy “bird” (hamsi kuşu). Hey, why not? If someone felt creative enough to call an opened and laid flat chicken a “butterfly”, no one can deny a right of anchovy to be a bird; with a black back and shimmering silver stripes on the sides it does look like one.

Hamsi kuşu assumes filleting the small fish. Yes, you heard me right, filleting the small fish. If you have not done it, I can ensure you will not be intimidated. Ok, maybe a little bit, but only in the beginning. All my cooking class participants gain confidence towards the end of a small batch.

After you are done filleting you press two fillets against each other, skin out and here is your anchovy bird. You can sneak something inside, for instance a filling of feta cheese and herbs, again coat in the corn flour and fry.. Wait, I told you there will be no frying this time. Remember, you’ve got a red-hot oven ready by now? Anchovy birds fly right in. But wait a second!

Building a satisfying flavor

Just before they do we need dress them. Because dinner, quick or not, has to be satisfying. And your food becomes satisfying if you include a few flavors and let them mingle. As your palate has got a bit of complexity to appreciate, your stomach gets filled slowly.

You should add a bit of oil as you don’t want those silver skins to stick to the baking tray. You need to use an oil with a high smoke point so it could stand the hot oven without breaking into harmful elements: check the list in the link and match it with your pantry.

Then garlic and dill, you can put quiet a bit of both: anchovies might be small, but they carry a bold flavor. Any spices you may fancy. Come on, go beyond your regular repertoire! What did you bring from your last trip abroad? What has been sitting in the pantry without being used? Here is the occasion. Sea salt seals the deal. Done? Almost. Flash roasted fresh anchovy love being served with a green salad on the side.

Flash-Roasted Fresh Anchovy “Birds”

There is a tremendous difference between the fish cooked just enough and overcooked fish: you want your fish soft and juicy and not rubbery and dry. That’s why watch your anchovy once in the oven as the distance from raw to soft and juicy is short - only 1 or 2 minutes.

Serves 2

Prep time: 10 min (might take longer if you’ve never filleted a small fish before)
Cook time: 2 min
Total time: 12 min

Ingredients

300 g fresh anchovy
2 tbsp oil with a high smoke point
2 cloves garlic, minced
2 tbsp cup finely chopped dill
1/4 tsp mustard seeds
1/8 tsp ground sumac
2 generous pinches fine sea salt

Directions

Preheat the oven to 230C/445F.

Warm up the oil in a small skillet and remove from the heat. Stir in the minced garlic, chopped dill, mustard seeds, sumac and fine sea salt. Let infuse.

Meanwhile fillet the anchovy. Once done, wash the fishes thoroughly, place in the strainer and drain. Transfer the fishes in the skillet with the infused oil and toss to coat well. Take two anchovy fillets and press against each other skin side out. Place on a non-stick baking tray and continue with the rest of the anchovy fillets. Place in the properly pre-heat oven.

As the fish cooks, you have time to make a quick salad: I prefer shredded rocket with pomegranate seeds and plenty of extra virgin olive oil.

Check anchovy “birds” after 2 min (depending on your oven it might take longer). As the fish turns from translucent to opaque, it’s cooked. Immediately remove from the oven and serve.