Small Fry

I had plenty of lovely makings in the fridge - a big steak to grill, perfect for the long holiday weekend and potatoes to roast, fresh peas in the pod just waiting for the word "Go!" but no incentive, no interest, no oomph. I just didn't feel like cooking.

My Beloved is beloved for lots of reasons and reading my body language at times like this is one of them. He suggested we dine out.

We drove over to the Yankee Pier restaurant in Larkspur looking for a bite of seafood dinner. The joint was jumping when we arrived but we were seated immediately anyway and offered the menu plus some enticing specials.

For an appetizer, we shared the fresh sardine plate. They came neatly butterflied, grilled and resting on a warm salad of fresh fava beans and arugula in a pool of lemony, kicky sauce. The deeply fishy fish were nicely balanced by the fresh greens and tangy sauce. Not everyone likes sardines for their somewhat oily flavor but for local, sustainable and good-for-you fish, they are hard to beat. These are the fish that spawned Cannery Row in Monterey and then left it flat when they mysteriously disappeared. They are back now, although Cannery Row has other fish to fry these days.

Yankee Pier is family-friendly, as witnessed by young children ineffectually supervised by their parents running up and down the aisles and nearly managing to trip the servers. If you are in a mood for peaceful surroundings, this is probably not the spot for you but if cheerful, bustling dining with small fry next to an open kitchen fits your attitude, you probably can't go wrong here. Especially if you are not in the mood to cook.

Sardine Sandy

Just before I closed this sardine sandwich, I snapped its picture so you could see just what it was made of. Sourdough baguette, sliced in half and spread with what my friend Pat calls a scrape of mayo. A little lettuce, a slice or two of ripe tomato, a couple of quarters of marinated artichokes nestled between the sardine halves.

Slap it all together and you have a heck of a big bite and an even bigger taste. Next time, I'd just put olive oil, or the oil from the sardine can, on the bread to enhance the fish but it was fine the way it was, richly piscine and tasty.

Something Fishy

I have no idea why this dish seemed appealing to me - fish on pasta? First I read about it when Mark Bittman made it. I thought, "Huh, now that sounds interesting." Then, I happened across a similar recipe on epicurious.com. I do like canned sardines - they are one of my guilty pleasures - but it somehow didn't seem like something I'd usually make.

However, I was intrigued enough to try it. Bittman adds capers to his, where epicurious.com relies simply on garlic and fresh parsley to flavor their version. Since I didn't have capers in the house... yeah, epicurious.com won.

This is very simple, fishy fare. All you do is drain a little oil from the can of sardines packed in olive oil (I found a brand of local, wild caught ones) and add to that some plain olive oil in which you sauté a hefty amount of garlic. When the garlic is soft, you add a cup and a half of dry white wine and boil it down by half to make a sauce, toss in the fresh parsley off the heat, add the pasta to the sauce for a few minutes before plating, split the fillets over the mound of pasta (they called for linguine; I had vermicelli) and pour over rest of the sauce. Serve with lemon wedges. One can of sardines, a tablespoon of olive oil, four cloves of garlic, 1-1/2 cups white wine, 1 cup chopped Italian parsley, a handful of pasta - that's it.

Next time I make this, as I will surely do, I will grate just a little Parmesano Reggiano over the pasta before placing the fillets. While it was good and hearty and I loved the fresh greenness of the parsley playing off the oily fish, it lacked a little je ne sais quoi that I think it needed. Still, it was interesting, in a fishy sort of way.

Were They Worth It?

You are probably asking yourself if the trauma of cleaning the sardines was worth it. While it wasn't the most delightful thing I've ever done, read on:

You will want to have all the prep work for your dinner done before you begin to grill the sardines, as they are small and will cook very quickly - even a few extra minutes will make them dry rather than richly moist.

I wanted to serve mine with garlic toasts and on a bed of Mediterranean vegetables, so I rubbed the baguette slices with a cut clove of garlic (both sides) and set them aside to grill with the fish.

In a wide frying pan, I sautéed in olive oil some sliced onions, anise, sweet peppers, shallots and zucchini together with a handful of fresh lemon thyme leaves, then added about half a cup of rosé and left it to simmer until the veggies were no longer crisp but still firm.

While the veggies bubbled away, I laid the bread slices on the grill for a quick sear - don't leave them even for a minute or they will be burned. You want them striped with rich brown but not blackened.

To barbecue fresh sardines, start the fire in one side of the barbecue and leave the other side "cool." When the coals are gray, place your little fishies on the grill with the head end toward the coals and the thinner tail end toward the cooler area. Grill them for about 3-4 minutes per side - when their golden oil begins to bubble out, they are done.

Spoon a nice serving of veggies onto the plate, top with 2-3 sardines and artfully place a few of the garlic baguette slices. Once the sardines are cooked, the bones are easily removed - just slide your knife along the spine to lift off the fillet cleanly, then lift out the whole skeleton in one piece.

If you like mild, white fish best, like halibut or sole, you may be surprised by the muscular taste of fresh sardines. They are strong little critters, but full of oils that are good for you and smoky, delicious flavor. To me, they were totally worth it....several hours later.

Fishwife

I've been reading a lot about fresh sardines this summer - they seem to be in all the magazines I subscribe to. I like most fish, even the kind of sardines that come packed cheek-by-jowl in a can that opens with a key, but I had never had any fresh ones, so when they appeared at my local market, I was tempted.

These little fish are about 6-8 inches long and really quite beautiful, silvery on the undersides and bright, ocean blue with darker blue spots on the top. I purchased about half a pound, figuring there'd be some waste when I removed the heads.

What I didn't realize was that my sardines had not been cleaned, either. Eeek.

A quick search on the internet showed that some people cook them whole, guts and all, and eat them like corn on the cob, grasping head and tail and nibbling along the sides. I somehow knew that wasn't going to fly in my house; My Beloved is a strong trencherman but he does have his limits and, truth be told, I couldn't face them with heads on, much less with guts in. So, in addition to having to remove heads, I sharpened my paring knife, bellied up to the sink, took a deep breath and began the nasty chore of cleaning sardines.

I don't recommend it. Ask your fishmonger to do it for you. Next time, I will definitely ask for help first.

A few tips: Remove all your rings first. Clean the fish hours before you plan to eat them, giving yourself time to recover your appetite. The best way to remove the fishy odor from your hands is to wash them in dishwashing liquid after rubbing them with lemon juice. Keep the sardines refrigerated while you lie down with a glass of wine and a diverting book. When you feel your appetite has returned, light the barbecue and set the table.

Tomorrow, I'll give you the recipe - today, you wouldn't appreciate it anyway.

Frugal Fishy Lunch

This amazing lunch came about through simple frugality, the urge to use up bits and pieces of several things I had on hand - a good-sized piece of puff pastry left over from making the fruit tarts, half a yellow heirloom tomato, most of a can of sardines and half a lemon after making Jamie's Chicken Caesar, a handful of dry farmed Early Girl tomatoes, half a jar of marinated artichoke hearts and a fennel bulb.

After rolling out the puff pastry and painting it with olive oil, I sliced the tomatoes thinly, settled a school of halved sardines on top of them, nestled slivers of artichoke heart in between, sprinkled fresh thyme from the garden and the lemon juice, scattered sliced fennel lightly, and drizzled some of the marinade from the artichoke bottle over the top. Baked it for about 20 minutes in a 375 degree oven.

Killer lunch! My Beloved and I enjoyed every savory bite.

The only thing I'd change would be to use my baking stone next time, as the center of the crust was soggy on my stainless baking sheet.

A final tip: dry farmed tomatoes - a new idea to me - are da bomb, so richly flavored and concentrated. Apparently, they don't water them at all once they get started so the fruit is smaller but ever so tasty! I'm going back to El Cerrito Natural Grocery, where I found them, today to snag some more.