Sarde in Saor
Fried sardines buried in sweet-sour onions with pine nuts and raisins. Venetian sailors' food, and it needs two days before it is any good.
Photograph credit: sarde in saor (con cipolle rosse) by fugzu · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
This is not a dish you eat on the day you make it. The vinegar needs forty-eight hours to move through the fish and mellow, and the onions need the same to give up their sweetness into it — eaten fresh it is sharp and disjointed, and on day two it becomes one thing. The onions are also cooked in a great deal more oil than looks reasonable, because that oil ends up as the dressing rather than being drained away.
Questions About Sarde in Saor
How long does Sarde in Saor take to make?
30 minutes of preparation and 30 minutes of cooking, plus 2 days of marinating for two days, so allow 2 days 1 hour from start to finish. The recipe serves 6.
Photograph credit: sarde in saor (con cipolle rosse) by fugzu · CC BY 2.0 · Flickr
How to Make Sarde in Saor
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Dust the sardine fillets with the flour and salt.
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Fry them in the sunflower oil for 90 seconds a side, until pale gold. Drain on a rack.
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Cook the onions in the olive oil over medium-low heat for 25 minutes, until completely soft and translucent but not coloured.
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Add the vinegar, wine, salt and bay and simmer 8 minutes, until the sharpness has softened.
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In a deep dish, lay a bed of onions, then a layer of sardines, then raisins and pine nuts. Repeat, finishing with onions so the fish is completely covered.
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Pour over any oil and liquid left in the onion pan.
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Cover and refrigerate at least 2880 minutes before eating. Serve at room temperature.
Related guide: Prep, cook and total time.
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A Few Pointers
- Two days, minimum. On day one it is not the dish.
- Do not colour the onions — they should stay pale.
- Finish with onions on top so nothing is exposed.
Common Substitutions & Variations
- A dry vermouth keeps for longer than an open bottle of white wine and is the closer swap than a random white left in the fridge; for an alcohol-free version, use the same amount of stock with a squeeze of lemon.
Pairs Well With
Grilled polenta · A glass of Soave · Crusty bread
Keeping and Reheating
Refrigerated for 6 days and best between days two and four. Do not freeze.
The Numbers per Serving
No nutrition figures are given for this recipe: they cannot be worked out reliably from its ingredient list (how much frying oil the food takes up cannot be known from the recipe). Why some recipes have none.
Your notes on this recipe
Cooked this? Keep a note for next time
Compiled by Turab
Checked by script for timings, diet labels and nutrition arithmetic. How the recipes are checked. Found a mistake? Tell us.
First published ; last changed .
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