shaun-in-to
Well-known member
I used a recipe from a New York restaurant (Alba Blu). It said cover the sardines in coarse sea salt for three hours, then wipe off and cover in white wine vinegar for three hours, then leave in flavoured oil for a week. They tasted wonderful, but the photo showed them rolled up, and these were too firm to roll--which was not a problem. But the skin dissolved. I had to wipe it all off so it didn't leave unsightly smears on my guests' plates. I'm wondering if that was because of the long time in the vinegar. Other recipes vary in what they say: in some you leave the sardines in vinegar for 24 hours, in others you just dip them in the vinegar, so it's hard to know what the cause was. I'd like to do this again, or a variation (like Batali's), but I'd also like to keep the attractive skin.