In Cetara, a small village on the Amalfi Coast, anchovy is being prepared. How to prepare, where to buy it, where to sit to eat fish (well, spending little)
On the Amalfi coast everyone stops to visit the beauties of Amalfi, but few continue along the coast to discover equally suggestive and not at all tourist villages, such as that of Cetara. Known since the Middle Ages as the best fishermen in the area, the Cetarians still today they live by fishing and the tourist vocation has only been discovered for a few years and remains a gem for curious travelers, looking for small structures and a relationship with the territory – the still true one.
Few shops, few taverns, few producers that still pass on local traditions such as anchovy sauce. Here's where to go
The Al Convento restaurant and cuopperia
To try the local cuisine on site, in Italy only one address is known, that of Trattoria Al Convento, restaurant and pizzeria, with an outpost dedicated to street food in the square: The Cuopperia del Convento.
The canned tuna and fish shop
Cetarii is a shop facing the beach, it sells canned fish and offers tastings of different types of tuna, appetizers and sandwiches. You can discover the differences between bluefin tuna, white tuna, alliterate, belly and mackerel. They make gourmet sandwiches with canned fish and croutons to pair with a glass of wine.
The anchovy sauce
There anchovy sauce few produce it, but only one has remained active in the village, Neptune, a family laboratory of salted anchovies and in oil, pesto alla Cetarese but above all anchovy sauce – Slow Food presidium and soon DOP. Colatura di Cetara anchovies is an amber liquid obtained from the maturation of anchovies in salt, according to an ancient procedure handed down from father to son by fishermen and which is now known all over the world thanks to the chefs who have been able to enhance it in their dishes . The anchovy colatura exists clearer and younger, perfect for pasta, and the older and more intense one, to be "used with caution", sells it in 50ml bottles, more than enough.
Cetarese pesto
The recipe of the Cetara pesto alla Nettuno di Cetara includes basil, parsley, garlic, capers, almonds, pine nuts, walnuts, green and black olives, anchovy fillets, anchovy sauce, and olive oil. But there are those who add oregano, spicy chilli peppers, some dried figs, some lemon zest. Can be used on hot croutons or on pasta: the best? Here they have no doubts, they do Gragnano spaghetti slightly salty, which releases a lot of starch and gives more consistency to the pesto.
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