Anchovy Sauce

There's a moment, when you stir the pounded anchovies into the warm white sauce, where the kitchen suddenly smells of the sea. Salt and butter and something deeper than either. It catches you off guard every time, even when you're expecting it.

This is a Georgian sauce, and not one most people make any more. A pity. People used to know what to do with anchovies. They pounded them into butter, into sauces, into anything that needed waking up. Then somewhere along the way we forgot, and anchovies became a pizza topping you apologize for. A small loss, easily fixed.

The sauce itself is plain enough. White sauce, properly made, then sharpened with anchovy until it tastes of itself. Spoon it over a piece of poached fish on a quiet Tuesday, or pour it alongside a slice of roast lamb on a Sunday in spring when the new season's lamb has just come in and feels like an occasion. You don't need much. A puddle on the warm plate. The fish or the lamb does the rest.

I wrote it down in the notebook last Easter: 'Anchovy sauce with the lamb. Forgot how good this is. Make again.' Some things you have to keep relearning. We're only making dinner, but a sauce like this is the difference between feeding people and feeding them properly.