Iberia · Volume 04, The Cider and Cod Coast
Gilda
Basque Country
Illustration
- Time
- 10 minutes
- Researched
- 16 sources cited
Blas and Juana Vallés, from Olite, opened a small wine bar in San Sebastián in 1942, serving pickled snacks alongside Blas's Navarrese wine. In the late 1940s a regular customer skewered anchovy, olive and guindilla on a toothpick for easier eating; it was named after the 1946 film Gilda, starring Rita Hayworth, for being salty, green and a little spicy.
As tradition built it
Serves 4, as a pintxo. 10 minutes.
Ingredients
The tradition's method, with the ingredients named. Quantities follow as we verify them.
- 12 anchovy fillets, salt-cured
- 12 pitted green olives
- 12 pickled guindilla peppers
Method
- Thread one of each, anchovy, olive, guindilla, onto a cocktail stick, folding the anchovy fillet rather than leaving it flat.
- Serve at room temperature, three or four sticks to a plate.
What a modern chef changes
The three components' individual quality, not the format, is what elevates this.
Not tied to a rung, deliberately
Method
- Source Cantabrian salt-cured anchovy specifically, hand-filleted, over a generic tinned anchovy, since the difference is entirely in the raw material here, not in any method.
- Use a genuinely piquant guindilla rather than a mild pickled pepper sold under the same name, since the dish's balance depends on real heat against the olive's fat and the anchovy's salt.
- Serve very cold, straight from the fridge, the one small, legitimate departure from strict tradition, since a chilled gilda holds its texture longer under a warm room than a room-temperature one.
Notes
This dish's whole point is restraint.