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Pasta con le Sarde (Sicilian Pasta with Sardines)
Pasta con le Sarde is a famous dish of Sicilian cuisine. It's a very tasty pasta recipe made with simple ingredients such as sardines, wild fennel, raisins and breadcrumbs.Sardines are a typical "blue fish" that is very common in the Mediterranean sea and in Sicily in particular.One of the key ingredients in this recipe is wild fennel. Wild fennel is a very common herb in Sicily. It gives a special flavor to Pasta con le Sarde. If you cannot find it, you can substitute it with fennel top and some fennel seeds.
Ingredients
- 350 g spaghetti ¾ pound, thick spaghetti or bucatini
- 250 g sardines ½ pound, net of scraps
- 200 g wild fennel 7 oz, you can substitute wild fennel with fennel tops and a scant teaspoon of fennel seeds.
- 1 onion white, small
- 50 g raisins ~5 tablespoons
- 30 g pine nuts ~4 tablespoons
- 30 g almonds ~3 tablespoons
- 3 tablespoons olive oil extra virgin
- 0.15 g saffron powder 1 sachet
- 150 g breadcrumbs 1 ½ cups
- black pepper to taste
- salt to taste
Instructions
- Boil the wild fennel. When the water boils, toss in the wild fennel - or fennel tops - and cook them over medium heat for 10 minutes.
- Once cooked, drain and chop them on a cutting board. Keep aside. Save the boiling water from the fennel.
- Soak the raisins in a small bowl of warm water. Keep aside. Then, on a cutting board, chop the onion quite finely and keep aside as well.
- Using an electric mixer, chop the almonds. It's not necessary to grind them into a powder, just chop them coarsely.
- Clean the sardines thoroughly. If your sardines are already cleaned, skip this step. Remove the head, tail, dorsal fin, guts and center bone.
- Finally, rinse them quickly under running water and dry them with paper towels. Arrange them on a plate and keep them aside.
- In a skillet, sauté the onion in extra virgin olive oil.
- Then add chopped fennel (and fennel seeds if you do not have wild fennel), raisins (squeezed out of water), chopped almonds and pine nuts and stir.
- Add a ladleful of the fennel cooking water and mix well. Let it cook for about 5 minutes on medium heat.
- Then dissolve the saffron in a tiny bit of water and add it to the sauce.
- Add the sardines. If they are large, cut them into pieces, otherwise put them whole.
- If necessary, add a little fennel cooking water so that the sardines turn out covered.
- Cook for about 5 or 6 minutes over medium heat. The sauce should be quite thick and the sardines not too flaky.
- Taste and add salt and pepper if necessary. Keep aside.
- Toast the breadcrumbs in a frying pan. Heat a 1 to 2 tablespoons of oil in the pan and add the breadcrumbs. Toast over medium heat.
- Stir continuously so that the bread does not burn but becomes golden and crispy. This will take about 5 minutes. Keep aside.
- Bring a large pot of salted water to a boil. Cook the spaghettoni - or bucatini - following the cooking time described on the package.
- Drain the pasta 2 minutes before the end of cooking time. Place the pasta directly into the pan with the sauce.
- Add a drizzle of oil and, if the sardine sauce has thickened too much in the meantime, add some of the fennel cooking water. Cook for 2 minutes over high heat, stirring gently without letting the sardines flake.
- Serve the pasta hot with plenty of crunchy breadcrumbs.
Nutrition
Serving: 100gCalories: 837kcalCarbohydrates: 107gProtein: 35gFat: 30gSaturated Fat: 4gPolyunsaturated Fat: 9gMonounsaturated Fat: 14gTrans Fat: 0.003gCholesterol: 89mgSodium: 477mgPotassium: 760mgFiber: 7gSugar: 6gVitamin A: 70IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 357mgIron: 6mg
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