Marinated Sardines with Fresh Garlic & Black Pepper
This recipe includes a quick marinade for fresh sardines that includes extra-virgin olive oil, white wine vinegar, lemon, finely-sliced raw garlic, and freshly-ground black pepper.
Ingredients
- 8 fresh sardines, bones removed and fillets cleaned under cold water and dried
- 1 tsp kosher salt
- Zest of 1 lemon
- Juice of 1 lemon
- 3 Tbsp white wine vinegar
- ¼ tsp red pepper flakes
- 2 cloves garlic, finely sliced
- ¼ tsp freshly-ground black pepper
- 3 Tbsp good-quality extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 Tbsp fresh parsley, finely minced
Instructions
- Remove the heads and guts from the sardines and cut off the fillets.
- Carefully remove the bones from the fillets.
- *Tweezers will facilitate this process, if you have them.
- Gently rinse the fillets under cold water, and drain them carefully on paper towels until they are completely dry.
- In a medium-sized mixing bowl, combine the remaining ingredients, including the 1 tsp kosher salt, the zest and juice of 1 lemon, 3 Tbsp white wine vinegar, ¼ tsp red pepper flakes, 2 finely-sliced garlic cloves, ¼ tsp freshly-ground black pepper, 3 Tbsp good-quality extra-virgin olive oil, and the 1 Tbsp minced parsley.
- Combine the marinade in a Ziplock bag with the sardine fillets and push out the excess air from the bag.
- Seal the Ziplock bag with the marinade and the sardines, and place the bag inside of a large bowl or casserole dish in the fridge.
- *This will help ensure that none of your sardine marinade leaks out of the bag into your fridge.
- Allow the sardines to marinade in the fridge for roughly 2 hours.
- 30 minutes prior to when you are ready to serve, remove the sardines and marinade from the fridge and allow them to sit at room temperature for 30 minutes.
- When the marinade has come to room temperature, serve the sardines on small pieces of warm, toasted bread, drizzled with a bit of olive oil on top.
Notes
Do your best to ensure you are buying really fresh and beautiful sardines from a fish vendor you trust.
You can leave these sardines to marinate for up to 24 hours, although the flesh will become considerably firmer as the sardines sit in the acidic liquid for longer periods of time.
You can leave these sardines to marinate for up to 24 hours, although the flesh will become considerably firmer as the sardines sit in the acidic liquid for longer periods of time.