The All-Sardine Diet!

Little silvery wriggly pure goodness, how I worship thee! But it was a learned worship.

I didn’t grow up eating sardines, unless you count the supercheap nasty ones they sold in tins in our local crappy supermarket. Blech! No wonder so many people think they hate sardines! When I tasted real, i.e. fresh,  sardines for the first time in Japan, it was one of those handfuls of culinary epiphanies that come along in life. How was it possible that I had missed, for most of my life, something so good? They serve iwashi every conceivable way in Japan: cured, raw, sauteed, deep-fried, as ceviche (with yuzu, sudachi, and kabosu), on rice, as kabayaki (fried first, then basted with a sweetened soy mixture) . . . and dozens of other ways I’m too lazy to list. It was HEAVEN.

What’s so good about them? Everything. The taste, mainly — their natural oils are pure manna when hyperfresh.  Everyone has different food buttons, both good and bad, but sardines going into my gullet is pure crack for me; the body just goes AHHH, thank you kind sir, that is exactly what I needed! Whenever I read some bit of nutritional research that tells me how good sardines are for me — they contain more omega 3s than any other single naturally occurring substance, I believe — I just laugh, because how much better does it get when science has got your back on a particular food AND you can’t get enough of it?

Sometimes you can find plastic tubs of perfectly cured white sardines, sold next to the olives. I can go through a tub in a single sitting, like popcorn. But it’s best when you find sardines fresh; they’re not that easy to track down though. So I was elated when Santa Rosa Fish, the giant seafood purveyor at the Marin farmers market, had them in quantity.  Most of the fresh fish they sell there is well north of $10, $15, even $20 a pound, but beautiful, perfect, local (Monterey) sardines were …. $2.99! Their cheapness just underscores their beauty to me; they are the overlooked yet deeply attractive sea babes.

But how to deal with them?

You first cut off the head, fins, and tail. Make a slit with a sharp knife near the butthole, and glide the knife upward. The viscera should just pull out. Rinse the fish. Then, carefully using your index finger and thumb, grasp the backbone from the tail end, and gently lift it out; this may require a tiny amount of pulling and separating flesh from vertabrae. But it should come out reasonably easily. Rinse again. You now have a butterflied sardine. You can dust the fish with good salt and pepper and saute in a heavy pan heated aggressively with olive oil and butter (sardines are the bacon of seafood; you really don’t need to do very much to them) and be instantly rewarded with sardiney goodness.

Or you could do what I did, which is place the fillets in a bowl, rinse a few times, generously salt, then cover with a vinegar blend (apple cider and rice vinegar this time) for a few hours, or more. This will cure the fish, and make the delectable little morsels available anytime fancy strikes. You can just put them out on an antipasto plate, alongside some olives, salami, and bread, and have a stellar snack. Or you can get more ambitious and make a kickass pasta with nothing more than a few cloves of garlic confit, a handful of sardines, fruity olive oil, some toasted breadcrumbs, and a few fistfuls of finely chopped parsley (this is a very dangerous combination; caveat eator!). Sardines love cauliflower for some reason, too — saute some florets, add some chopped-up sardines and minced tarragon and you’ll have side dish guests will wolf down in record time. Nice on salads, too — be sure to have some spicy croutons around, along with some bitter lettuces like arugula, treviso, or other chicories.  Above I made a simple sardine, satsuma tangerine, and fennel salad.

Maybe I should start promoting the all-sardine diet! Any other sardine fans out there? Have you ever had any from a tin that taste great?