Colatura di alici is a clear, amber anchovy sauce from Cetara, a fishing village on the Amalfi Coast, sold as colatura di alici di Cetara with protected designation of origin (PDO) status (Corona et al., 2022). Anchovies (Engraulis encrasicolus) are gutted and layered with salt in wooden barrels under a weight; over many months they break down, and the liquid that drips out through a hole in the barrel – the colatura, from colare, “to drip” – is collected and bottled. It’s often called a descendant of the Roman fish sauce garum (Russo et al., 2020). A few drops season a whole plate of pasta.
What’s in It
The first detailed analysis of colatura found 90–130 g of protein per kilogram and 30–38 °Brix of dissolved solids, mostly from the large amount of salt used. Its most abundant aroma compounds were 3-methylbutanoic acid, nonanal and 3-methylbutanal, products of long fermentation and fat oxidation that give it a cheesy, fishy, umami character (Russo et al., 2020). Glutamate – the main umami amino acid – is the dominant free amino acid and keeps rising as colatura ages; samples were studied at 12, 24 and 48 months in wooden barrels (Corona et al., 2022).
Histamine and Why Ageing Matters
The main hazard in anchovy products is histamine, which bacteria can make from the fish’s histidine and which causes allergy-like poisoning in high doses. In colatura, histamine fell significantly between 12 and 48 months of maturation, which the researchers say supports the minimum maturation of at least 9 months set in the production rules (Corona et al., 2022). A study following PDO production, in which the anchovies are gutted, found histamine below the European limit for fish sauces at every stage – about 51 mg/kg in the colatura – and cadmium, lead and mercury below their limits (D’Anza et al., 2024). People who react to histamine should still go carefully with any fish sauce.
Why There’s No Home Method Here
The safety of colatura depends on very fresh fish, gutting, the right salt, months of maturation and testing – none of which can be checked in a home kitchen, and raw fish left for months in a jar is a different proposition from a vegetable ferment. Buy a bottle labelled colatura di alici di Cetara DOP, keep it closed and cool, and refrigerate it after opening.
How to Use It
Colatura is used raw, at the end: on pasta with garlic, olive oil and parsley (recipe card below), in a dressing for greens or cooked vegetables, or a few drops over fish. Because it’s salty, add it before any other salt and taste. Its Southeast Asian cousins are made differently – see our fish sauce guide and Lao pa daek – and Sweden’s surströmming is fermented herring of a very different kind.