Читать книгу A Girl and Her Pig - April Bloomfield - Страница 39

MARINATED SARDINES

The sardine might be my favourite fish, and as much as I love them grilled whole, this is also a fantastic way to eat them. Marinating the fillets in a simple mixture of little more than lemon juice and olive oil firms them up and lends them a brightness that doesn’t interfere with their oceanic quality. The result is refreshing and cleanly flavoured. The sardines are a treat laid over a salad of tomatoes or on top of some sliced cucumber tossed with crème fraîche and dill, though I often just eat them on olive-oil–lashed toast, perhaps with a little rocket and crumbled chilli.

serves 4

5 tablespoons freshly squeezed lemon juice

A generous pinch of finely grated lemon zest

3 dried pequin chillies, crumbled, or pinches of red pepper flakes

1 teaspoon sea salt

8 large fresh sardines (about 450g), scaled, gutted, and filleted (see Buying and Filleting Sardines, here)

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

A small handful of small, delicate flat-leaf parsley sprigs

Combine the lemon juice, zest, chillies, and salt in a medium dish that’s at least 2.5cm deep and just large enough to fit the sardines in one layer. Gently shake the dish and swirl the liquid to dissolve the salt. Gently lay the sardine fillets skin side up in the mixture. You don’t want to stir them, because agitating them too much will release their oil and you’ll get a slightly fishier flavour.

Drizzle the olive oil over the top. Give the dish a gentle shake to make sure the sardines have settled in the liquid and look comfortable. They won’t quite be submerged.

Cover the dish with clingfilm and pop it into the fridge overnight. The lemon will cook the sardines, firming them up a bit and infusing them with its flavour. (You can leave them to marinate for up to 2 days. They’ll be quite firm but still tasty.) Before serving, take them out of the fridge for a few minutes. I like to eat them when they still have a slight chill to them. Roughly chop the parsley and sprinkle it on the sardines. However you serve them, make sure to top them with a drizzle of the pan liquor.

BUYING AND FILLETING SARDINES

Choose fresh sardines that have firm flesh, clear eyes, and shiny skin. Their scales should be tight against their bodies, not flaking off. Ask your fishmonger to fillet them or, even better, do it yourself. Rinse the sardines under running water, rubbing them gently to remove any stray scales, then pat them dry. Get a small sharp knife, preferably a flexible one like a fillet knife. Put the sardines on a cutting board. Hold your knife perpendicular to a fish and insert it into the flesh just behind the head. Grip the head with your other hand and use a gentle sawing motion to cut along the backbone toward the tail to remove the first fillet. Flip the fish over and do the same to the other side. Repeat with the rest of the sardines. Lay each one skin side down on the cutting board and trim off any fins, hard bits, or dark bits from the edges. Leave the thin bones be. They’ll dissolve as the fish marinate.