Aglione and anchovy crostini
Some dishes work because they are complicated and some work because they are not. This is the second kind: toasted bread, aglione cream, an anchovy fillet on top. Five minutes to make, and it stands comparison with starters that take forty.
Why aglione and anchovy belong together
Salted anchovy is savoury, decided, almost aggressive. Aglione is the opposite: sweet, soft, without edges. Put together they do not cancel each other out — they hold each other up. The cream is the cushion, the anchovy the thrust.
With ordinary garlic it would not work the same way: two strong flavours going to war on a slice of bread.
What you need, for six crostini
- 6 slices of stale Tuscan bread, cut a centimetre thick
- 3 tablespoons of Aglione Cream
- 6 salted anchovy fillets, rinsed and patted dry
- extra virgin olive oil
- black pepper, fresh parsley
The fact that Tuscan bread is unsalted is not a detail: it is what keeps the saltiness of the anchovy in balance. With an already salted bread the crostino becomes heavy.
The method
Toast the bread until it is crisp outside and still slightly yielding inside. Over embers it is another thing altogether, but five minutes in a 200-degree oven does the job.
Spread the aglione cream on the bread while it is still warm — the heat helps it take and releases the aroma. Then lay on the anchovy fillet, a thread of raw oil, a turn of pepper, a few parsley leaves.
Serve immediately. A crostino waits badly: after ten minutes the bread softens and loses half its point.
Three variations worth making
With the shoots. Instead of aglione cream, the Shoot Cream, which is greener and more vegetal. It changes the register of the crostino without changing the idea.
With tomato. Half a confit cherry tomato over the anchovy, for anyone who wants a point of acidity.
Without anchovy. For those who do not love it: shavings of aged pecorino in its place. Different, but it holds.
A note on quantities
The temptation is to overdo the cream. Do not: a level teaspoon per slice. Aglione is gentle but it is not shy, and at double the dose it covers the anchovy instead of supporting it.
