Small Fish, Big Oceans: Sardines

The Small Fish Recipe Sweepstakes

In the spirit of the commitment by chefs worldwide to use under-utilized fish like anchovies, herring and sardines in their restaurants on World Oceans Day, Crown Prince Seafood encourages you to try these delicious and nutritious small fish in your recipes at home as often as you can.

When it Comes to Fish, One Chef’s Trash is Another’s Daily Special

We prefer to call these small fish “The Daily Special” as there is nothing trashy about them. In the next few weeks we’ll be sharing stories and recipes from around the world for anchovies, herring and sardines and invite you to share your recipes with us by entering our Small Fish Recipe Sweepstakes.

In Croatia, fishing for sardela or sardina on the coasts of Dalmatia and Istria began thousands of years ago. The region was part of the Roman Empire, then largely a Venetian dominion, and has always been sustained through fishing mainly sardines. All along the coast, many towns promote the age-old practice of fishing by lateen sail boats for tourism and on festival occasions. Today, industrial producers continue this tradition. There are several famous Croatian dishes with sardines, for instance: Komiška pogača (a pie with salted sardines and tomato sauce) and Saur or Inšavor (sardines fried and then cooled, seasoned with olive oil, vinegar, garlic, black pepper and rosemary.)

Raising lateen sail on Bracera “Our Lady of the Sea”

A simple recipe for Saur:

To taste: mix olive oil, white wine vinegar, crushed garlic, thinly sliced white onion, fresh oregano, rosemary, black peppercorns, coarse sea salt, and a bit of white wine. Adapt the seasonings to your taste. Boil for 5 minutes. Set aside.

If you have fresh clean sardines, season them with salt and pepper and grill them in the oven (or, even better, on an outside grill) until done – about 2 minutes should do it.

If you have canned sardines, drain off any liquid and pat the sardines dry.  Season with a bit of pepper and grill for about a minute.

Let the sardines cool. Arrange a layer in a dish and cover with half of the marinade. Top with the remaining sardines and the rest of the marinade.  Refrigerate at least 2 hours. Bring to room temperature and serve.