Sustainable Fish: Pan-Fried Sardines

Hi, I'm Louisa Shafia, and you're watching Rachel Ray's Buddies on eHow.com. Today, I'm going to make pan fried sardines. These are fresh sardines that I got from the market. I had my fishmonger just gut them but leave the head and tail on. So I'm going to show you how this is done. I'm just going to pan fry them today. So I'm going to start by seasoning them with a little bit of salt and some pepper. Now I'm going to dredge them in a pan of polenta. This is just coarsely ground cornmeal. If you have cornmeal. Or if you have flour, you can use either one of those too. But, I also like the polenta because it's got a nice coarse grind to it and it's got a really good crunchy texture, so once the sardines come out of the pan, they're going to be really nice and crisp. OK so I'm just going to roll these sardines around in the cornmeal until they're really well covered in this. And this is easy because the sardines are a little bit wet. The cornmeal is just going to stick to them. And just for safety, I'm going to add a little bit more salt and pepper on these guys. Now, I'm going to cook them in this pan. This has been heating at medium temperature so I'm putting in just a little bit of olive oil, enough to coat the bottom of the pan. And in these go. Yes. So I hear that nice sizzle when they hit the pan, that means my temperature is hot and I'm just going to let these cook for about four minutes per side. And what I'm looking for here is a light brownness to the fish and also I'm going to check inside and look at the flesh and if it's still translucent, that means they need more cooking time. But if the flesh is opaque and it feels a little bit firm, then that means that my fish are done. I've been getting really excited about sardines lately because I'm always trying to find eco friendly seafood choices. Sardines are a great eco friendly food choice because there are plenty of sardines in the ocean. They are very abundant. As opposed to some other fish which are being really overfished and are close to extinction. Ok these look like they're about ready to turn over. OK so you can see they're a little bit browned. And that's what I'm looking for. I'm going to add a little bit more oil while these cook just to make sure everything doesn't burn. I'm going to show you, after these are down, how easy it is to take the flesh off of the bones. So you can either have your fishmonger do it for you ahead of time, or you can do it yourself after the sardines cook. I'm going to take a look at these fish and see if the flesh looks cooked. And it looks done. It's coming away from the bone really easily. I'm going to take these out of the pan and transfer them to a plate and just let them cool a little bit before I take the flesh off the bone. OK so my sardines are going to cool off and meanwhile I am going to cook off a little bit of cherry tomatoes and some minced garlic. Because what I'm going to do is now that my sardines are cooked, I'm going to toss them with a little bit of pasta and vegetables. So I'm putting in some cherry tomatoes here, I'm putting in some garlic, and I'm just going to let this cook in a little bit of olive oil. That's great that it's in the same pan as the sardines. If can soak up all that flavor. And this is all going to get tossed together with some pasta and the sardines at the end. So this is great that this is all in the same pan with the sardines. It's going to get that nice fishy flavor with a little bit of salt and pepper. OK. Now comes the fun part. I'm going to take the fish off the bones. So I'm going to start by just holding it at the head end and with my fork I'm going to very gently just pull the flesh off of the bones. And you can see it comes off really easily. I'm going to use my hands here just a little bit. But the skeleton is pretty much in tact. I'm just going to toss that out. Again, you just hold the head end. You can use your fingers for this, you can use a fork. Peel the flesh off one side. If the other side doesn't come off, just use your fork to nudge it off. OK so I just took all the fish off of the ones. If you see any little bones, just pull them out with your fingers. You definitely want to give it a once over just to make sure that you got all the bones out of there, but if there's a few tiny ones, some of the bones are going to be tender enough that you can just eat them, but you do want to go through these just to make sure. OK so I have my tomatoes and garlic cooking over here. I'm going to add just a splash of white wine, give it a little bit more flavor and a little bit more sauciness to the pan. Here I have some pasta that I parcooked earlier, it's almost all the way cooked, so I'm going to add this to my hot pan and let this finish cooking off with the tomatoes and the garlic. This is going to be so good. OK this smells great with the wine and the garlic and the olive oil. OK this pasta looks done. I am going to put it into a big bowl over here. And I'm going to add a little bit of parsley, I'm going to add a little salt and pepper, little bit of lemon juice to season this, little oil. OK this looks beautiful. On top I'm going to put my sardines that I cooked. This looks so good and fresh and summery. I feel like I'm in Italy or something. OK as a little garnish I'm going to put this parsley on top. This looks great. Pasta, sardines, cherry tomatoes, can't go wrong. Thanks for joining me, I'm Louisa Shafia, see you next time on eHow.com.