Matrimonio Riojano de Logroño

Matrimonio Riojano is Logroño's anchovy pincho, and its name tells the joke before you eat it: one salt-cured anchoa and one vinegar-cured boquerón on the same slice of bread. Under them goes roasted red pepper, sweet enough to quiet the salt and bright enough for a glass of Rioja. The salt-and-sharp is the dish. Not a pile of things. A marriage.

The method that decides it is restraint, and also a little drying. Roast the pepper until the skin blisters, peel it, then let the strips shed their wetness before they touch the bread. Drain the anchoa and the boquerón too. If the pepper runs and the fish drip vinegar and oil everywhere, the bread goes slack and all you taste is salt. Build it neat and each bite lands clean.

Far from Logroño, don't make yourself brave with bad fish. Buy good oil-packed salt-cured anchovies for the anchoas and refrigerated marinated white anchovies for the boquerones en vinagre. A jar of pimientos del piquillo, or any good roasted red pepper, is honest when fresh peppers are poor; it will be sweeter and less smoky, so pat it dry and keep the strip narrow. No hace falta haber pisado España. Siempre sale, si lo sigues.

My Margin beside this one says no lo ahogues, don't drown it. A few drops of olive oil, a toothpick, and the two anchovies in the same mouthful. That is enough.