The Garlic Bread Chronicles, Part 3: Garlic Bread With Anchovy Butter and Bitter Greens

Anchovy-spiked garlic bread topped with bitter radicchio proves that salad and garlic bread were always meant to share a plate.

Anchovies have long suffered from a branding problem. Mention them at a dinner table and someone will inevitably recoil, picturing a tin of aggressively fishy fillets. But in the right hands, anchovies are less “fish” and more wizardry — melting into dishes and leaving behind only depth, salt and a savoury richness that makes everything around them taste more intensely like itself.

Here, they slip into garlic butter, where they nearly dissolve into a flavour that is deeply resonant and almost impossible to identify outright. The result is garlic bread with a little more swagger: buttery, crisp-edged and humming with umami.

Then come the greens. A tumble of sharply bitter radicchio or peppery arugula cuts through the richness with crunch and brightness, turning what could have been a side dish into something with star power. Food is about bringing layers and contrasts together — warm and cool, rich and bitter, soft and crackling — and this is proof that garlic bread can, in fact, contain a salad and still remain unapologetically garlic bread.

If you are anchovy-hesitant, this is an excellent place to begin. The heat of the oven softens their sharper edges, leaving behind only a savoury backbone that wakes up the garlic and butter. Think of it less as “fish” and more as flavour infrastructure.

Yield: 4 to 6 servings
Time: 15 minutes 

Ingredients

• 4 tablespoons (60 grams) salted butter, softened, or extra-virgin olive oil 
• 1½ tablespoons The Spice Drawer’s Garlic Bread in a Pinch Blend
• 2 teaspoons anchovy paste, or 2 anchovy fillets, finely minced
• 1 medium baguette (about 12 inches long), halved lengthwise
• 2 cups thinly sliced radicchio or arugula
• 1 tablespoon extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 teaspoon fresh lemon juice
• Freshly ground black pepper

Preparation

Step 1: Make the Butter

Heat the oven to 200°C (400°F). In a small bowl, mash together the softened butter, The Spice Drawer’s Garlic Bread in a Pinch Blend and the anchovy paste until smooth and fully combined.

Step 2: Spread

Place the baguette halves cut-side up on a baking sheet. Spread the anchovy butter generously from edge to edge.

Step 3: Bake

Bake for 8 to 10 minutes, until the butter is bubbling and the edges of the bread are deeply golden and crisp. For extra colour, broil for 1 to 2 minutes at the end, watching carefully to prevent burning.

Meanwhile, in a medium bowl, toss the radicchio or arugula with the olive oil, lemon juice and several grinds of black pepper. The greens should be lightly dressed, not weighed down.

Step 4: Finish and Serve

Remove the bread from the oven and heap the dressed greens over the warm bread. Slice into thick diagonals and serve immediately, while the bread is still crackling at the edges and warm beneath the cool, bitter greens.