Beccafico Sardines

Beccafico Sardines

Duration: 1 h 30 min

Difficulty: Medium

Origin: Sicily

Beccafico sardines are a typical Sicilian recipe. Their name derives precisely from the fact that their shape must resemble the beccafico, a small bird that was hunted and consumed by Sicilian nobles. These birds were cooked whole including the entrails and placed next to each other. Popular wisdom in its daily poverty has been able to imitate the shape of these birds by wrapping the sardines in a roll and opening the tail of the sardines like the tail of a bird and filling the inside with pine nuts, breadcrumbs and other things to enrich their internal consistency. Today this dish, which has remained unchanged over time, has had great success and the sardines are prepared both fried and baked.

Ingredients

For 4 people:

• 700 g of sardines
• 80 g of breadcrumbs
• 3 salted anchovy fillets
• 30 g of capers
• 30 g of black olives
• 40 g of raisins
• 40 g of pine nuts
• 1 bunch of Parsley
• 1 Lemon
• Extra virgin olive oil
• salt

How to Proceed

Take the sardines, remove the head, cut them into booklets and debone them. Then wash them well under running water, then dry them.

In a non-stick pan, add a drizzle of extra virgin olive oil and add the breadcrumbs. Toast it well and then transfer it to a bowl. Add the anchovies and capers, pitted and finely chopped black olives to the bowl. Finally add the raisins previously soaked in warm water, the pine nuts and a grated lemon zest, the chopped parsley leaves.

Add a little olive oil and a pinch of salt to the dough. Begin mixing all the ingredients until you obtain a homogeneous mixture. Roll out the sardines into sheets, leaving the inside part facing up. Spread a little of the mixture over each sardine and then close them by wrapping them on themselves starting from the head and ending on the tail. Press on the sardine roll, crushing it a little and then coat it well in breadcrumbs.

Now you can decide whether to bake them or fry them. If you want to cook them in the oven, place the sardines in a pan next to each other with the tail facing upwards and then add a drizzle of oil on the bottom. Heat the oven to 180°C and cook for 30 minutes.

If you want them fried instead, take a non-stick pan, add some oil and fry them. When they are well cooked and the breading is golden, remove them from the pan and after draining them well, place them to dry on a sheet of absorbent paper.

Serve the beccafico sardines piping hot.