sardinefish

Sardine & Andouille Greens

2010-12-29T13:00:00-07:00

Along with the faithful sardine, another commonly recommended way to get more iron and other healthy nutrients is to eat a lot of dark leafy greens: spinach, kale, chard. There are also the Southern "soul food" greens: mustard, turnip, collard, et cetera, which can be horribly bitter and overcooked — thus the need to smother them in hot sauce. But if you don't cook them as long, they can be really tasty, healthy, and still cheap.

In the pre-cut salad section at Trader Joe's, I found a one-pound bag of their Southern Greens Blend, consisting of mustard, turnip, collards, and spinach. (I've seen similar packages at other stores.) The Louisiana style greens recipe on the bag looked okay, but I wanted something...more. Something...fishy. Here's what I came up with.

ingredients

2 tbsp. olive oil
1 large onion, diced
three Andoille sausages, sliced length-wise and then chopped into 1/4" thick pieces
three cans of sardines, drained and broken apart with a fork
fish sauce (nam pla) or worchestershire sauce
1 pound of chopped dark leafy greens*
2 cups turkey or ham broth
1 tablespoon cider vinegar

recipe

in a dutch oven, heat the olive oil
sautee onions over medium heat until translucent
add sausage, and cook until it begins to brown
add sardines and a few squirts of fish sauce, and stir everything; reduce heat to medium-low and cook a few minutes, until fragrant
add chicken broth, stir, and add greens
simmer on low heat, covered, until the greens reduce in height by half (about 15 minutes)
stir everything thoroughly and simmer another 10-15 minutes
add cider vinegar and cook uncovered 3-5 minutes
serve immediately over rice or quinoa, perhaps with cornbread

Note that this will not result in the mushy, bitter greens you may be used to; the leaves will still be distinct, chewy, and flavorful.

I borrowed the vinegar idea from the Kerala Mathi curry recipe — it somehow makes the fishy canned sardine taste less prominent, without losing the depth of flavor.

And while I haven't tried it yet, I expect you could cook the rice, quinoa, or another grain in the same pot by adding it in step 5 along with some additional broth. Another variation could be to use a different sausage — or ham, or smoked turkey. There's a lot you could do with this recipe as the starting point.

Kerala Mathi Curry

2010-11-22T11:04:32-07:00

One of the most powerful, yet most overlooked signs of the flattening world must be the growing number of Indian food blogs. Some are written by people living in or visiting various parts of the subcontinent, others by expats living in the United States, England, or elsewhere; nearly all have recipes described as "this is how my mother makes it." For someone like me who loves Indian spices and preparations, yet is totally unable to follow any recipe exactly as written, these sites provide a unique opportunity to research and compare minor variations on the same dish before attempting to vary it myself.

Yesterday evening, after tapping into that vast, unprofessional, curator-less store of real recipes made by real people, I made a spicy fish curry which tasted very similar to what we ate in Kerala, on the Southwestern coast of India. However, that similarity was not entirely a success.

I started, of course, by cleaning the sardines. Ew. Stinky, messy...and that was with only six fishes. Not sure I could've handled 25, which some of the recipes called for.

The recipe I started with was from Spice Coast Kitchen, a blog by someone named Vrinda who describes the site as their "culinary diary." I suppose that's what this site is, too, though here I'm solely diarising our experiences with sardines and similar fish.

Being me, I made a few modifications to Vrinda's recipe — but not much, not enough that I'd repost it as my own. For example, I didn't have a fresh tomato on hand, so I used crushed tomato from a jar. And I didn't want it to be too spicy, so I swapped paprika for the cayenne powder.

Then there were the chiles.

Vrinda's mathi curry recipe calls for three green chiles, no information on style or size. I assumed this must refer to tiny, extremely hot chiles, so I used four small (but not tiny) chiles, possibly Thai in origin, which I bought as part of a big bunch for a dollar at the Alemany Farmer's Market and have been drying on a wire shelf for the past week or so.

Two of these chiles would've been enough. Maybe even one. The resulting dish was approaching my limits of spiciness, and a bit over the line for my wife — almost as spicy as in Kerala itself.

Except for that, it was pretty good. We ate it with Thai long grain red cargo rice (cooked with a three whole cloves in the pot) and steamed leeks and chard.

Yet I think it still needs...something...before it'll really stand out as a dish I can be proud to serve to foodie friends. I should try adding coconut milk, like in Suresh's recipe. Or maybe this is as good as a sardine curry gets, and I should focus on grilled or fried preparations instead.

Lots to try. I'm looking forward to it.

How to Clean Fresh Sardines

2010-11-21T13:54:26-07:00

Image by dr.jd via Flickr

I was raised by vegetarians, so I didn't learn how to cook animal flesh until I was an adult. Actually trimming, cleaning, and otherwise preparing the flesh for cooking is often still somewhat daunting — and even more so with fish.

Now that we live in the San Francisco Bay Area and can get fresh sardines fairly easily, it's time for me to learn how to clean 'em. There are six whole sardines waiting in my fridge right now; they're destined to play the starring role in a curry by dinnertime. But first, I have work to do.

Here are a few sites I've been reading today for inspiration, all describing similar (but different) methods for cleaning sardines:

How to Clean Sardines Japanese Style, from Kyoto Foodie — which also has some recipes I'd lke to try
How to Clean Sardines and Eat as if you live in Spain, from Vanessa Barrington
How to prep sardines with Boqueria's Seamus Mullen, by Daniel Gritzer in Time Out New York

There's only so much one can learn from photos, videos, or illustrations. Very soon now, I'm going to have to grab a little fishie by the head and start slicing.

Wish me luck.