Vegan Anchovy Paste

"So good I laughed out loud."

Tucked into the bottom of my favourite thing I published last year — this screed against eating anchovies — is a recipe of sorts for my favourite anchovy substitution. It’s a paste, so not suitable for draping-over-toast type applications (try the amazing Chef TJ’s eggplant anchovies for that), but perfect for amping up a tomato sauce or vegan caesar. I’ve also put it into a squeeze bottle and attempted to pipe little fish shapes on my pizza because that’s the kind of nerd I am. Alas I didn’t grind my seaweed fine enough so my imagined dainty fish were more blobby squiggles, but they tasted awesome and brought those little jolts of salty intensity I remember growing to love when I was a kid — anchovies, onions, and green olives was one of my mom’s favourite pizza orders.

juliatausch

A post shared by Julia Tausch (@juliatausch)

Recently my new-ish Insta and Twitter bud, Melisa Spence, an adventurous culinary student from Oakland, posted that she’d veganized a recipe from the wonderful

Andrew Janjigian

for a pizza sauce that includes anchovies. For her first attempt, she used Iru (West African fermented locust beans) that she got from Burlap and Barrel (who I see are now shipping to Canada! RIP my wallet!) I’ve been reading about West African ferments for a while and they are so on my list to try. But while Melisa loved the Iru generally, she wasn’t sure it made for a perfect anchovy sub, and took to Twitter to ask for other ideas.

I sent her my anchovy piece that includes my recipe plus a host of other ideas, and Melisa, who isn’t vegan herself but often cooks that way, promised to report back. Two of my anchovy-loving friends had already kindly tried my recipe in pasta sauce and gave it the “if we hadn’t known, we wouldn’t have been able to tell,” stamp of approval. But I was thrilled to have yet another person who's recently eaten actual anchovies test the recipe for versimilitude. I’m not always going for perfect substitution, I just want things to taste good, but in my article my thesis was “You really don't need to kill beautiful silver fish to get this particular taste!” and I hoped what I’d written was true. Here’s what Melisa wrote:

I mean, what a dream! Food and laughter, my favourite things! Buoyed by the type of energy only external validation seems to bring out in me, I decided it was time to share the recipe as it’s own thing so as to more easily spread the word. (Since I drafted this, Melisa has also written a whole blog post about her vegan anchovy pizza, check it out!)

This particular recipe evolved over the years and was influenced by Nadine Abensur whose book introduced me to umeboshi paste, and Miyoko Schinner whose vegan fish sauce recipe includes brine from a jar of fermented tofu. I also want to be mindful about using these traditional Asian ferments in more European ways. White vegans have a terrible track record of pretending they’ve “hacked” something or come up with the “best” use of it or whatever. That’s not what I’m trying to say at all. These ferments used in their traditional ways — the beancurd as a seasoning for vegetables or as a topping for congee; umeboshi as a pickle served with rice — totally rule. This mixture I’ve made to mimic fish isn’t “better” than those applications, it’s just something else you can do to showcase the mind-bendingly delicious flavours of these salty, savoury ferments.

Okay, forthwith:

Vegan Anchovy Paste

This makes enough paste to replace one tin of anchovies (for example, this is the amount I use for Alison Roman’s Caramelized Shallot Pasta recipe which employs a full tin) but it can be scaled up and down easily as it’s just equal parts of everything. If you just want a little funk, a teaspoon of each ingredient will get you there, or even just a half. Like tinned anchovies, this paste is strong, salty, and pungent, so use the amount you enjoy!

Ingredients:

• 1 tbsp (2-3 cubes) white fermented beancurd (I use Pearl River Bridge brand)

• 1 tbsp umeboshi paste (I use Koyo or Eden brand)

• 1 tbsp powdered seaweed of your choice (dulse, wakame, & kelp are all great)

Method:

• Mash all ingredients in a small bowl with a fork until well-combined. That’s it!

Alison Roman’s Caramelized Shallot Pasta, hold the dead fish, tysm!