20/09/2024

Tasting of the best Cantabrian Anchovies selection 2020

In our section Cata la Lata today we taste Anchovies of the Cantabrian Sea Selection 2020 from the hand of Antonio Ballester, from Casa Ballester. Antonio Ballester, owner of the online store Casa Ballester.es, specialists in canned seafood and fish, brings us a selection of the best Cantabrian anchovies.

Three very different cans are presented for the tasting:

CODESA Anchovies Limited Seriesone year cured in the cellar.
Anchovies CARLANMARa family factory in Santoña, which makes a very good product, and that will surprise more than one.
Anchovies PERSONAL SELECTION by Casa Ballesteran anchovy prepared for us, selected by me and with a style perhaps a little different from the other two.

Codesa Anchovies Limited Series

We begin the tasting with the Codesa Anchovies Limited Series, 11-14 pieces.
Codesa is characterized by using an anchovy from the Cantabrian Sea spring campaign, these are specifically from 2020.
They always use the dawn fishing, which is the anchovy that is harvested early in the morning so that it arrives as fresh as possible to their factory.
Let’s open it and see how it is!
As always Codesa uses a very potent and high quality olive oil.
Inside it carries the number or name of the person who canned these anchovies.
The anchovies have a caliber of 10 to 10.5 cm.

Tasting: An anchovy with a very intense flavor, accompanied by a very powerful olive oil that marks the flavor of the anchovy.

Anchovies Carlanmar

We continue with the leaflet of Anchoas Carlanmar.
A factory, as I said before, very small in Santoña.
I met it on one of the trips I made to Santoña looking for the best anchovies made in the area and I found this small factory.
It is also a very matured anchovy, very dehydrated, perhaps even more than the Codesa anchovy we opened earlier.
Therefore, it has a firmer texture.
A length of about 10 cms.

Tasting: This anchovy has a very intense flavor of the anchovy itself, uses a very simple olive oil, simply as a coating but does not give it any kind of flavor, and is a top quality canned product.

Anchovies Casa Ballester

Finally, we have a special can of anchovies from Casa Ballester, personal selection, with the peculiarity that it is an anchovy selected by me, in which in each spring campaign I choose the best anchovies to make an anchovy a little different from the usual.
They are tins with 12-14 anchovies, this one in particular has 13 units.
Its size is from 11 to 11.5 cm approximately.

Tasting: We have a more tender anchovy, very soft, with an extraordinary cleanliness, and that reflects its own elaboration.
An anchovy processing that is hand-softened and placed in the can, without prior extraction of moisture, as many canning manufacturers tend to do, including the two previous ones.

Cantabrian Anchovy Tasting Score

In summary, this is the evaluation of the three anchovies tasted:

Codesa AnchoviesA very good anchovy with a very powerful olive oil that marks the flavor.
Anchovies from CarlanmarFirst quality product, and contrary to the previous one, with a very soft olive oil, which goes practically unnoticed.
Anchovies Casa BallesterAnchovies: an anchovy of a larger caliber, and due to its own elaboration process, a much more tender and smoother anchovy on the palate.