Cooking 4 2: Pasta con le Sarde

(Pasta with Sardines)

This is a traditional Sicilian dish which, since it is meatless, has a Lenten bias. Where I grew up, it was often a favorite for a St. Joseph's Table. Well, it's been a long time since I was into anything like that, so, with St. Joseph's Day upon me (March 19), I decided to take a crack at this again. Now the biggest objection I always had with this meal was the deadness of the flavors. After thinking about this for years, I have concluded that the problem is that we always make it with canned stuff. You can buy a yellow can of Pasta con Sarde ingredients packed in Sicily. Then after sprucing it up a little bit you get the traditional goopy, and to me anyway, uninteresting dish.

This really shouldn't be the case, because the basic ingredients: sardines, anchovies, fennel, golden raisins and pignoli (pine nuts) are really pretty good. The problem is one of freshness. Traditional dishes almost always rely on local foods. Local foods = Freshness. I think when we attempt to make meals whose fresh ingredients are too far away to ever be fresh by the time we get them, then we must substitute fresh ingredients which we can obtain and which don't alter the flavors too much. I live 4700 miles or about 7500 km from the Straits of Messina! The chances of getting fresh sardines or anchovies are zero. However, on the Niagara Frontier we have access to Lake Smelt. So I have revised this recipe a little to try to make it taste a little fresher. Since I'm writing this after my little experiment, I'm here to tell you that it worked! It was by far the best tasting Pasta con Sarde I have ever had and was perfectly bright in flavor. And so I thought I would share it here.

The only Sicilian wine in my cellar right now is Regaleali Bianco from Tasca d'Almerita. Not a bad choice for this meal. The map shows that Regaleali and Messina are not too close, but distance is relative. From here in Niagara they look next to each other!

These are the ingredients for two servings

(as are most of the recipes in this blog).

Ingredients:

Smelt in front

4 oz. Fresh Lake Smelt

2 oz. good quality canned Sardines (this replaces Anchovies)

1 small Fennel (Anise) bulb

1 medium Onion

½ oz. Pignoli (Pine Nuts)

2 oz. Golden Raisins

pinch of Saffron

Sea Salt and freshly ground Pepper

Olive oil

5 oz. Pasta (short tube type)

Method:

1 Wash the Smelt and remove the backbone. Divide into two piles. Keep the larger Smelt in one pile and the smaller in the other. The piles should be approximately equal.

2 Bring a pot of well-salted water to a boil. Wash and trim the Anise bulb (reserve some of the lacy fronds, but don't add them to the water). Add bulb to the water and cook for about 15 minutes. Remove bulb, leaving the Fennel-water on simmer, and let the bulb cool while you chop the Onion into smallish dice, measure out the Pignoli and Raisins, and remove the Sardines from the can. I'm using half a can for this recipe.

fennel ready for boiling

ingredients prepped, bulb cooling

When the Fennel is cool enough to handle, remove and discard the tougher outer peel and dice the rest.

3 Sauté the Onion in several Tbs. of Olive oil until it is golden.

Add the Sardines and the smaller Smelt and crush them with your spoon. Add lots of salt* and freshly-ground pepper, simmer for a while, stir often and keep crushing until you make a sauce.

Now add the Raisins, Pine Nuts and diced Fennel to the sauce.

sauce base finished

remaining ingredients added

Cover the pan and simmer for a while, adding a little hot Fennel-water from time to time. When the sauce looks done, add a pinch of Saffron and stir in.

* a note on the salt: fresh fish is not salty, so you need to salt (and pepper) up this sauce a bit.

4 Heat another several Tbs. of Olive oil in a small pan and carefully fry the larger Smelt until the edges are brown. Let these drain on a paper towel, seasoning them well while they are hot. I did this fish-frying while the sauce was simmering.

frying Smelt

5 Heat the Fennel-water back to a rolling boil and add the Pasta. (Preheat the oven to 375F at this time.) A few minutes before the Pasta is done, remove it from the pot and drain well. In a bowl, mix it with about half the sauce.

mixing pasta and sauce

6 In a shallow, oven-proof pan (I used a flan pan), spread out a layer of about half the Pasta. Then add the fried Smelt over this. Cover with the remaining Pasta and pour the remaining sauce over all. If it looks a little dry, add a little Fennel-water to moisten.