05.19.08
Sardines tonight
Just back from Whole Foods, where I bought a dozen fresh Monterey Bay sardines for dinner tonight (The Wife, a friend, and I). I figured out that the best cooking method is to roast them, and I think this is the recipe I’ll use:
Preheat oven to 450 degrees. Whisk together 1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil and 2 tsp hot paprika. Place sardines on a baking sheet and season inside and out with salt and pepper. With a pastry brush or spoon, coat fish with paprika oil. Roast sardines until they are just cooked through, about 7 minutes.
And I think I’ll fillet them:
Notes on cleaning and deboning sardines:
- Ideally, your fishmonger will clean (take out the guts and remove the scales) your sardines.
- If the sardines are not cleaned, then you need to make a slit in along the bottom length of the fish and pull out the blood and guts (it’s not as gross as it sounds). Then, remove the scales by running the dull edge of a knife against the grain of the scales (from tail to head lengthwise). Do all of this under cold, running water in a sink.
- Using a sharp paring knife, remove the top and bottom fins, being careful not to cut away more than necessary to get the fin.
- Then, cut the head off just behind the gills and discard.
- Using your thumb and pointer finger, grab the spine where it connected to the head and gently pull it and the rib cage away from the meat of the sardine’s filets, leaving the two filets connected in one butterflied piece. Holding the tail with your other hand, firmly separate the spine from the body and discard. Don’t worry too much if there are some tiny rib cage bones left behind — they’re edible.
UPDATE: The filleting of the sardines was easy and increasingly easier as I went through the batch. (I bought a “mean baker’s dozen”: 11.) The olive oil + paprika was good, but I think next time I’ll marinate them in a lemon-juice vinaigrette and then roast them that way. The time (7 minutes) was right on target at 450º. Very tasty little guys, and very few bones left.
UPDATE 2: See this post.
The Eldest said,
19 May 2008 at 10:55 am
Might be good with some of your roasted cherry tomatoes…
Steve said,
19 May 2008 at 11:37 am
I love fresh sardines. Since they are very oily, they are ideal for a charcoal BBQ because they “flare up” quite nicely. And if they are not too big, we (Greeks) eat them bones and all (great Calcium source if you do so). Ideal with a glass of ouzo on ice or some Greek Retsina wine, and a fresh tomato and cucumber salad with feta cheese and great estate-bottled olive oil. Oh crap, I’ve gone and made myself hungry again!
The Eldest said,
20 May 2008 at 7:53 am
At a Greek restaurant near us that that specializes in seafood, they brush the fish with olive oil, grill, and then generously baste the cooked fish with a lemon juice/lemon zest/olive oil/garlic/sea salt mixture. Very tasty.