My favourite of all of Venice’s cicchetti is also among the most classic on offer at any bàcaro and is one of the traditional dishes that Venetians take on their boats with them, along with Bovoletti and roast duck for the Festa del Redentore, a joyful festival held on the third Sunday of July that celebrates the end of the Plague of 1576.
Preparing food in saor, the technique of marinating fried food in vinegar and other ingredients, was a favourite Venetian way of conserving food for long trips (Venetian gastronome and actor Giuseppe Maffioli called it cibo dei marinai, sailor’s food) and it can be likened to Portuguese escabeche and Japanese nanbanzuke. Although sardines are Venice’s most popular ingredient to prepare in saor, you can also find it with scampi, sole, plump prawns (shrimp), freshwater fish such as carp and trout, chicken, or vegetables such as radicchio (see page 100). Because it is a dish that lends itself well to being prepared in advance, in saor is a preparation that Ines de Benedetti in her Italian Jewish cookbook Poesia Nascosta: Le ricette della cucina tradizionale ebraica italiana (2013) writes ‘was never missing on Saturdays in the homes of good Jews’. Venice’s Jewish quarter is where you can find fried eggplant (aubergine) or pumpkin in saor, with finely chopped mint. The recipe for sarde in saor can be traced to the 1300s in one of Italy’s earliest- known cookbooks, the Libro per Cuoco by the so-called anonimo veneziano, the ‘anonymous Venetian’. It calls for sliced white onions cooked in oil and vinegar topping fried sardines, kept in a terracotta dish. Although the recipe hasn’t changed much since then, there are always variations based on personal preferences and family traditions. My friend Valeria Necchio makes hers without ‘much adornment’, as she says in her cookbook, Veneto, but with a touch of sugar together with the vinegar. Another friend of mine makes it with slices of lemon instead of vinegar and without the raisins or pine nuts. At the well-known bàcaro Al Mascaron, the dish has the addition of fresh bay leaves, coriander seeds and white, pink and black pepper – and they do a version with veal liver too, which has a touch of fresh ginger in it.
In Mariù Salvatori de Zuliani’s classic Venetian cookbook A Tola Co I Nostri Veci, she supplies two recipes, one with a marinade of onions, vinegar and sugar, the other with the addition of sultanas, pine nuts and cinnamon. She notes that sultanas and pine nuts are usually added in the winter, while the summer version doesn’t need them. And sometimes – for those who truly love the sweet part of sweet-and-sour – you’ll even find it with the addition of candied citron.
For a more in-depth exploration of Venetian dishes, get your copy of Emiko Davies’ Cinnamon & Salt
Sarde in Saor: Sweet-and-Sour Fried Sardines
Ingredients
- 12 fresh sardines, cleaned, heads and backbones removed, butterflied
- 1 ½ tablespoons plain, all-purpose flour, or enough for dusting
- vegetable oil, for frying
- 40 g (1 1/2 oz / 1/3) cup raisins
- 60 ml (2 fl oz / 1/4 cup) white wine, or water
- 1 large white onion, peeled and thinly sliced
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 125 ml (4 fl oz / 1/2) cup white-wine vinegar
- pinch of ground cloves, optional
- 1 teaspoon whole coriander seeds, crushed (optional)
- pinch of sugar, optional
- 1 ½ tablespoons pine nuts
- fresh or toasted sliced baguette or grilled polenta, to serve
Instructions
- Dust the sardine fillets in the flour and shallow-fry in oil for 1 minute each side over a medium–high heat until golden and crisp. Season with salt and set aside on some kitchen paper to drain until needed.
- Soak the raisins in the white wine for 15 minutes to soften them. Meanwhile, cook the onion gently in a frying pan with the olive oil just until it is soft and transparent, about 10 minutes on a low heat, then add the vinegar, the wine from the raisins (set the raisins aside), some freshly ground pepper and the spices, if using. Let it simmer gently for about 10 minutes, then remove from the heat. Taste the mixture; if it is too sharp, stir in a pinch of sugar.
- In a small terrine or deep dish, place a layer of sardines, top them with some of the onions, some of the raisins and the pine nuts, and continue layering until the sardines are used up, then top with a layer of onions, raisins and pine nuts, and finish with the rest of the vinegar sauce poured over the top. Cover and allow to marinate for at least 24 hours in the fridge before serving. This keeps well in the fridge for up to 1 week.
- These are best eaten at room temperature, removing from the fridge an hour before you want to enjoy them. Serve the sardines on slices of toasted or fresh baguette, or grilled polenta.
Notes
Cinnamon & Salt by Emiko Davies (Hardie Grant, £22), Photography © Emiko Davies.