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CzechCzar
Use the Fat, Luke!
that sounds awesome
Sardines - food of the gods - best recipes - post pictures!
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CzechCzar
Use the Fat, Luke!
The simple beauty of Portuguese-style grilled sardines
by Francis Lam
LISTEN: The simple beauty of Portuguese-style grilled sardines
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You could call fish the underdog of the summer cookout. When you have people getting psyched about racks of ribs and charring porterhouses, grilled fish doesn’t always get the love it deserves. But when you hear Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes and host Francis Lam speak so passionately about grilling sardines in the style of Mendes's home country, you can't help but think of how wonderful plump fresh sardines must taste with a bit of char on them. Get your grill hot and Mendes's recipe for Grilled Sardines with Green Peppers from his new book My Lisbon: A Cookbook from Portugal's City of Light.
Francis Lam: I wanted to talk to you about grilling food for a couple of reasons. First, because my wife's family is Portuguese, and I have fallen in love with grilled sardines; I want to be able to impress them next time I see them. Second, sardines, like mackerel, are a small, rich silvery fish that are incredibly delicious. I think people in the U.S. are intimidated by them, but the Portuguese have truly taken the appreciation of sardines and mackerel to the utmost extent. You guys really know what you're doing with these little fish.
Nuno Mendes
Photo Provided by Author
FL: How do you shop for them? I think that's probably the first thing that trips people up, right?
You can make Nuno Mendes's recipe for Grilled Sardines with Green Peppers at home. Photo provided by author.
FL: One more question. Do you treat the grill in particular way? I know a lot of chefs like to oil a rag and then rub the oil onto the grill. Do you do anything like that to make sure they don’t stick?
My Lisbonby Nuno Mendes
FL: And how do you like to serve them? Assuming, of course, you can get to them before the seagulls. In the traditional Portuguese style, they are serve straight grilled, maybe with a piece of lemon. But do you like to pair them with garnishes or sauces?
www.splendidtable.org
by Francis Lam
LISTEN: The simple beauty of Portuguese-style grilled sardines
0:00
More from
The Splendid Table
World-renowned pastry chef Dominique Ansel proves that everyone can bake
The rhythms of the bayou: Melissa M. Martin's simple, intimate Louisiana cooking
Saliha Mahmood Ahmed finds inspiration in dishes from the Mughal Empire
TOOLS
Email this
SHARE
Share on FacebookShare on TwitterPin it!Share on Tumblr
Sponsor us
You could call fish the underdog of the summer cookout. When you have people getting psyched about racks of ribs and charring porterhouses, grilled fish doesn’t always get the love it deserves. But when you hear Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes and host Francis Lam speak so passionately about grilling sardines in the style of Mendes's home country, you can't help but think of how wonderful plump fresh sardines must taste with a bit of char on them. Get your grill hot and Mendes's recipe for Grilled Sardines with Green Peppers from his new book My Lisbon: A Cookbook from Portugal's City of Light.
Francis Lam: I wanted to talk to you about grilling food for a couple of reasons. First, because my wife's family is Portuguese, and I have fallen in love with grilled sardines; I want to be able to impress them next time I see them. Second, sardines, like mackerel, are a small, rich silvery fish that are incredibly delicious. I think people in the U.S. are intimidated by them, but the Portuguese have truly taken the appreciation of sardines and mackerel to the utmost extent. You guys really know what you're doing with these little fish.
Nuno Mendes
Photo Provided by Author
FL: How do you shop for them? I think that's probably the first thing that trips people up, right?
FL: Big flaky salt. And you salt it right before you put on the grill.
You can make Nuno Mendes's recipe for Grilled Sardines with Green Peppers at home. Photo provided by author.FL: One more question. Do you treat the grill in particular way? I know a lot of chefs like to oil a rag and then rub the oil onto the grill. Do you do anything like that to make sure they don’t stick?
FL: When you flip them do you prefer to use a spatula to lift them up or tongs?
My Lisbonby Nuno MendesFL: And how do you like to serve them? Assuming, of course, you can get to them before the seagulls. In the traditional Portuguese style, they are serve straight grilled, maybe with a piece of lemon. But do you like to pair them with garnishes or sauces?
FL: I can't wait to go see my in-laws!
The simple beauty of Portuguese-style grilled sardines
Portuguese chef Nuno Mendes speaks so passionately about grilling sardines in the style of his home country, you can't help but think of how wonderful plump fresh sardines must taste with a bit of char on them.
- Thread starter
- #83
CzechCzar
Use the Fat, Luke!
As Coronavirus Keeps Us Stuck Inside, Look to the Canned Fish
Now is the time to get obsessed with small-batched sardines, tuna, anchovies and more
Sardines, tuna and other canned fish are perfect for stocking up and still eating well.
HORACIO VILLALOBOS - CORBIS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
BY MARGARET LITTMAN / MARCH 24, 2020 7:00 AM
We’re all being asked to step outside of our comfort zones (though perhaps not literally outside) as we shelter in place. For many of us, this means heading to the pantry and figuring out what the hell to make with the stuff we bought.
My personal emergency food rationing plan is “eat GORP,” so when my editor asked me to look into the best things to do with the best canned fish, I bounded out of my culinary comfort zone and into research mode.
People have strong opinions about fish in a tin. While some think it is smelly and unappetizing — as Andrew Gietzen says, “sardines are the punchline to every food joke” — most chefs list canned fish as the single most versatile ingredient, a protein- and Omega 3-packed version of a pickle.
Gietzen, a former chef, collected tinned seafood when traveling, albeit not that $2 can of tuna from Kroger. “I applied the same sourcing I would have to vegetables and meat: Fish that is bought in season and processed the same day it was purchased.”
There wasn’t much of that going on outside of Spain, which he calls “the Michelin star of the conservas world.” And big importers weren’t stocking products from small, specialty producers. So in 2017, with his wife, Nancy Parng, he opened Chicago-based Preserved States, a wholesaler of tinned fish.
His gems, such as the El Capricho sardine line, are packed in olive oil, butter, brine and even light tomato sauces. You won’t get them at a $2 bargain, but between $8-$30, they make a standard at-home-snack pretty spectacular. Thanks to folks like Gietzen, you’ll be able to nab this stuff even in a quarantine, particularly if the USPS keeps delivering. Look at specialty mail-order shops like Zingerman’s, which is supplied by Preserved States. (Preserved States does have a few items available direct to consumers on its website and Gietzen has plenty of time, while the rest of his warehouse is shuttered, to ship them out.) Mermaid’s Garden in Brooklyn and Wixter Market in Chicago are other options for quality domestic and imported tinned fish and shellfish. Wildfish Cannery also sells Alaskan seafood that it cans and preserves.
Related: Inside the Food World’s Secret Society: Bean Clubs
In addition to having better, distinctive flavor profiles, small-batch specialty tinned fish look better. They tend to be uniformly sized and perfectly arranged thanks to hand packing (a job done mostly by women, Gietzen says, as the job is suited for smaller fingers).
Chef Matthias Merges, founder and owner of Chicago’s Folkart Restaurant Management, waxes poetic about mussels arranged like a clock face inside a round tin. “You just open it up and it is a beautiful surprise.” Merges also uses Trader Joe’s wild-caught yellow fin tuna in salads. It comes packed in TetraPak containers, and is tasty and affordable, albeit without the “ta-da” moment of peeling back the top of an aesthetically pleasing tin.
Like Gietzen, Merges recommends canned fish from Spain, Portugal and Japan. He’s a fan of the Matiz brand of sardines, which are widely available. One of his favorite canned fish tricks is to buy a tin of cockles (aka tiny clams packed in their juices) and sauté them with olive oil, butter and handmade pasta. “It comes out unbelievable.”
“Lots of people buy canned tomato sauce for pasta but skip the protein. A can of smoked mussels is excellent for that,” Merges says. He also uses canned fish in omelets, another easy quarantine option.
In general, chefs agree that the best way to serve specialty canned fish is to leave them as unadulterated as possible. Let the flavor shine through, as you would a shave of jamón on a charcuterie board. If you are working with more mass-market goods, then more ingredients may be needed.
““I have been eating sardines since I was 5 years old. They were the first thing I bought when I heard that we might get stuck [in a quarantine]” (JEAN-SEBASTIEN EVRARD/AFP via Getty Images)
One of the cooks at Oxford Canteen in Oxford, Mississippi was talking about a dish his grandma used to make, and Corbin Evans, the restaurant’s chef, thought he was on to something. The team made a fish cake from canned jack mackerel ($1.87 at the local Kroger) and canned pink Bay salmon ($4), mixing in some mashed potato (Grandma didn’t approve of that) and egg as a binding, plus spices and mustard, and then dredged it through corn flour and served it with local arugula and a remoulade on a sourdough English muffin.
You can replicate that, or any fish cake/burger-type patty, at home. Look for a canned fish that is wild-caught and dolphin-safe at your closest supermarket or international grocer.
At one Oxford Canteen pop-up, Evans even made sardine Banh mi sandwiches, simmering the sardines in a light tomato sauce with onion, garlic, ginger and fish sauce, and then serving it on a bun with pickled carrots, cucumber and cilantro. “It was 50-50 ‘that’s delicious’ or ‘that’s disgusting,’ so I knew I was on to something.”
But Evans says you don’t even have to get that fancy.
“I have been eating sardines since I was five years old. They were the first thing I bought when I heard that we might get stuck [in a quarantine],” he says. He mixes them with mustard and puts them on a sandwich or swaps out smoked oysters on top of a Ritz or Triscuit cracker. “I can’t eat them around my wife, though. She thinks when I am eating it that I am thinking about money problems. But that’s not the case.”
www.insidehook.com
Now is the time to get obsessed with small-batched sardines, tuna, anchovies and more
Sardines, tuna and other canned fish are perfect for stocking up and still eating well.
HORACIO VILLALOBOS - CORBIS/CORBIS VIA GETTY IMAGES
BY MARGARET LITTMAN / MARCH 24, 2020 7:00 AM
We’re all being asked to step outside of our comfort zones (though perhaps not literally outside) as we shelter in place. For many of us, this means heading to the pantry and figuring out what the hell to make with the stuff we bought.
My personal emergency food rationing plan is “eat GORP,” so when my editor asked me to look into the best things to do with the best canned fish, I bounded out of my culinary comfort zone and into research mode.
People have strong opinions about fish in a tin. While some think it is smelly and unappetizing — as Andrew Gietzen says, “sardines are the punchline to every food joke” — most chefs list canned fish as the single most versatile ingredient, a protein- and Omega 3-packed version of a pickle.
Gietzen, a former chef, collected tinned seafood when traveling, albeit not that $2 can of tuna from Kroger. “I applied the same sourcing I would have to vegetables and meat: Fish that is bought in season and processed the same day it was purchased.”
There wasn’t much of that going on outside of Spain, which he calls “the Michelin star of the conservas world.” And big importers weren’t stocking products from small, specialty producers. So in 2017, with his wife, Nancy Parng, he opened Chicago-based Preserved States, a wholesaler of tinned fish.
His gems, such as the El Capricho sardine line, are packed in olive oil, butter, brine and even light tomato sauces. You won’t get them at a $2 bargain, but between $8-$30, they make a standard at-home-snack pretty spectacular. Thanks to folks like Gietzen, you’ll be able to nab this stuff even in a quarantine, particularly if the USPS keeps delivering. Look at specialty mail-order shops like Zingerman’s, which is supplied by Preserved States. (Preserved States does have a few items available direct to consumers on its website and Gietzen has plenty of time, while the rest of his warehouse is shuttered, to ship them out.) Mermaid’s Garden in Brooklyn and Wixter Market in Chicago are other options for quality domestic and imported tinned fish and shellfish. Wildfish Cannery also sells Alaskan seafood that it cans and preserves.
Related: Inside the Food World’s Secret Society: Bean Clubs
In addition to having better, distinctive flavor profiles, small-batch specialty tinned fish look better. They tend to be uniformly sized and perfectly arranged thanks to hand packing (a job done mostly by women, Gietzen says, as the job is suited for smaller fingers).
Chef Matthias Merges, founder and owner of Chicago’s Folkart Restaurant Management, waxes poetic about mussels arranged like a clock face inside a round tin. “You just open it up and it is a beautiful surprise.” Merges also uses Trader Joe’s wild-caught yellow fin tuna in salads. It comes packed in TetraPak containers, and is tasty and affordable, albeit without the “ta-da” moment of peeling back the top of an aesthetically pleasing tin.
Like Gietzen, Merges recommends canned fish from Spain, Portugal and Japan. He’s a fan of the Matiz brand of sardines, which are widely available. One of his favorite canned fish tricks is to buy a tin of cockles (aka tiny clams packed in their juices) and sauté them with olive oil, butter and handmade pasta. “It comes out unbelievable.”
“Lots of people buy canned tomato sauce for pasta but skip the protein. A can of smoked mussels is excellent for that,” Merges says. He also uses canned fish in omelets, another easy quarantine option.
In general, chefs agree that the best way to serve specialty canned fish is to leave them as unadulterated as possible. Let the flavor shine through, as you would a shave of jamón on a charcuterie board. If you are working with more mass-market goods, then more ingredients may be needed.
One of the cooks at Oxford Canteen in Oxford, Mississippi was talking about a dish his grandma used to make, and Corbin Evans, the restaurant’s chef, thought he was on to something. The team made a fish cake from canned jack mackerel ($1.87 at the local Kroger) and canned pink Bay salmon ($4), mixing in some mashed potato (Grandma didn’t approve of that) and egg as a binding, plus spices and mustard, and then dredged it through corn flour and served it with local arugula and a remoulade on a sourdough English muffin.
You can replicate that, or any fish cake/burger-type patty, at home. Look for a canned fish that is wild-caught and dolphin-safe at your closest supermarket or international grocer.
At one Oxford Canteen pop-up, Evans even made sardine Banh mi sandwiches, simmering the sardines in a light tomato sauce with onion, garlic, ginger and fish sauce, and then serving it on a bun with pickled carrots, cucumber and cilantro. “It was 50-50 ‘that’s delicious’ or ‘that’s disgusting,’ so I knew I was on to something.”
But Evans says you don’t even have to get that fancy.
“I have been eating sardines since I was five years old. They were the first thing I bought when I heard that we might get stuck [in a quarantine],” he says. He mixes them with mustard and puts them on a sandwich or swaps out smoked oysters on top of a Ritz or Triscuit cracker. “I can’t eat them around my wife, though. She thinks when I am eating it that I am thinking about money problems. But that’s not the case.”
Fancy Canned Fish Are the Ultimate Quarantine Delicacy
Self-quarantine means paying attention to what's in your cabinet, and nothing can be as versatile and delicious as canned sardines, tuna and anchovies.
www.insidehook.com
I am so glad to find others who enjoy these tasty little swimmers. I have loved them since I was a baby. I don't care how they are prepared or opened. I will devour them haha. Then again one of my favorite ways is to open a can of smoked brislings and add some of my Peach Carolina Reaper hot sauce on them and top a Sea Salt and Cracked Black Pepper Triscuit with them.
My Dear Fellow Sardine Lovers:
After hearing good things about Polar Smoked Sardines (thanx TexLaw & malocchio...fell in love with the see-thru cans), and having picking-up quite a few cans...I made this simple dish tonight for a light dinner w/ the Mrs.;
Italian Macaroni Salad (w/ Parmesan Italian Dressing), with Polar Smoked Sardines and a
sprinkling of Paprika!
Love the smoke flavor, no bones (although a good source of calcium), skin-on, not salty yet very firm (easy to toss / mix w/ salad etc...& won't turn to 'mush' in the process), no fishy after-taste and like the companies saying..."These sardines have the perfect combination of smokiness and freshness in a
single bite".
"[With sardines...] a smiling face is half the meal". Latvian Proverb
After hearing good things about Polar Smoked Sardines (thanx TexLaw & malocchio...fell in love with the see-thru cans), and having picking-up quite a few cans...I made this simple dish tonight for a light dinner w/ the Mrs.;
Italian Macaroni Salad (w/ Parmesan Italian Dressing), with Polar Smoked Sardines and a
sprinkling of Paprika!
Love the smoke flavor, no bones (although a good source of calcium), skin-on, not salty yet very firm (easy to toss / mix w/ salad etc...& won't turn to 'mush' in the process), no fishy after-taste and like the companies saying..."These sardines have the perfect combination of smokiness and freshness in a
single bite".
Last edited:
BTW, these Polar smoked sardines really 'out-classed' my old favorite...King Oscar sardines (lightly smoked, also boneless, and from Norway’s fjords and coastal waters), tinned w/ jalapeños.My Dear Fellow Sardine Lovers:
After hearing good things about Polar Smoked Sardines (thanx TexLaw & malocchio...fell in love with the see-thru cans), and having picking-up quite a few cans...I made this simple dish tonight for a light dinner w/ the Mrs.;
Italian Macaroni Salad (w/ Parmesan Italian Dressing), with Polar Smoked Sardines and a
sprinkling of Paprika!
View attachment 1078659
Love the smoke flavor, no bones (although a good source of calcium), skin-on, not salty yet very firm (easy to toss / mix w/ salad etc...& won't turn to 'mush' in the process), no fishy after-taste and like the companies saying..."These sardines have the perfect combination of smokiness and freshness in a
single bite".
With the Polar sardines...I can taste the 'difference' (subtle, [but still there; could it be linked to product origin?], i.e., texture, firmness, smokiness, salt etc...), between the two sardines.
Did you know that the smallest sardines are brisling (hence, being much more 'delicate'
to handle)
They really are something, aren't they? I'm so very glad I just picked some up on a whim.
They are actually sprats, which is a national dish in Latvia (look at the skin colour and fish shape). Very tasty and smoked, I love them, but they are not "real" sardines (in the sense of the atlantic sardine AKA Pilchards). It is often sold as sardine or bristling sardine.
I've heard of sprats , but I believe this is my first time eating them... after the 3rd tin I will call these " heavily " smoked, and very tasty....
Taking a round tin of Polar sardines to work today. We will see how it goes.
- Thread starter
- #92
CzechCzar
Use the Fat, Luke!
Are the round tins of polar sardines the same quality fish as the rectangular ones?
I was unimpressed with the rectangular tins and thought that Season was much better. But the round tins may very well be different.
Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
I was unimpressed with the rectangular tins and thought that Season was much better. But the round tins may very well be different.
Sent from my SM-G970U using Tapatalk
They are really nice, they go very well inside many dishes, like salads or pasta. I often ended up finishing the tin before the dish is ready
I am responsible of introduce many friends to them, and they are surprise of how good they are, and they feel bad of passing so many times in front of them at the supermarkets without even notice them. At the end it is not what they are (I just added a clarification), but how tasty they are. I'll get a tin soon!!
I have been following this thread with interest and learning a lot about sardines. This article was in one of my feeds today and may be of interest: This Underrated Canned Fish Is a Little Luxury Right Now - https://www.thekitchn.com/sardine-sandwich-recipe-23013330 .
I have rediscovered sardines thanks to this thread. Delicious.
Just a shot of my mid day snack. Grilled some canned luncheon meat with grated ginger, and topped with Crown Prince brislings, some fresh chopped parsley, squeeze of lemon, olive oil, homemade aronia honey mustard, and fennel cinnamon pink salt.
Ooooooh. You FANCY.
I’m also a fan of sardines. I like them with capers thyme oregano and some cracked black pepper. Really healthy quick snack
I buy Moroccan canned sardines in water. They are very close to Portuguese' quality and appearance, yet about 60 % cheaper.
They are the same species, and probably made in Moroccan factories owned by Portuguese or Spanish companies.
I know that with the anchovies, besides the ones fished in Morocco, some fished in highly appreciated areas are shipped to Morocco to be processed there, and them shipped back.
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