Revisited Sicilian Stuffed Sardines | Sarde a Beccafico Rivisitate
Sarde a beccafico is a dish of imitation. It exists because a poor kitchen in Palermo wanted to see something on the plate it could not afford, and the sardine made the illusion work. The rolled shape, the tail standing up, the bay leaf pushed in between: none of that is decoration.
This version keeps the imitation and changes the engineering. The filling stays what it always was, breadcrumb toasted in oil with raisins, pine nuts, anchovy and orange, but it is weighed instead of spooned. The rolls go into a very hot oven for a very short time rather than a moderate one for long, the bay leaves are placed as spacers, and the dish is chosen so the rolls fill it completely.
Nothing traditional is taken away. Every variable is simply measured, because a sardine opened flat is a sheet of muscle three millimetres thick, and at that thickness the difference between excellent and ruined is ninety seconds.
Yield: 4 main course servings, 4 rolls each. Prep: 35 minutes. Cook: 9 minutes. Rest: 4 minutes. Total: about 50 minutes. Difficulty: intermediate. Course: secondo piatto. Region: Sicily, Palermo and the Tyrrhenian coast.
The Story
The beccafico is a small migratory bird, the garden warbler, and in late summer it reaches Sicily having eaten almost nothing but figs on the way south. It arrives fat and sweet, and for centuries it was a delicacy of the aristocratic table, roasted whole with its tail raised. Its name says what it does: becca fico, it pecks at figs.
Everyone else ate sardines, which cost almost nothing, so Palermo copied the bird with the fish. A sardine opened flat and rolled from the head end leaves the tail sticking up, and a tray of them packed in ranks looks, from across a room, like small roasted birds. Raisins supplied the sweetness the bird got from figs, breadcrumb fried in oil and pine nuts the richness, orange the perfume.
Two Sicilian versions argue with each other. Palermo bakes the stuffed roll with bay leaves and citrus, while Catania sandwiches the filling between two opened sardines and fries the pair, under the same name. What follows is neither: it is a rereading, an author's version. The flavours and the shape are the Palermo ones, the method is a professional kitchen's.
Ingredients
For the sardines
Fresh sardines, 16, 2 1/4 lb (1 kg) whole, yielding 1 1/4 lb (570 g) butterflied
Extra virgin olive oil, 3 tbsp (45 ml)
Fine sea salt, 1/2 tsp (3 g), added when rolling
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the filling
Coarse dry durum breadcrumb, 1 1/2 cups (120 g)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1/4 cup (60 ml)
Golden raisins, soaked and drained, 1/4 cup (35 g)
Pine nuts, 3 tbsp (25 g)
Salt packed anchovies, rinsed and mashed, 3
Garlic clove, grated, 1 small
Finely grated orange zest, from 1 orange
Flat leaf parsley, chopped, 2 tbsp (6 g)
Pecorino Siciliano, grated, 2 tbsp (14 g)
Fine sea salt, 1/4 tsp (1.5 g)
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
For the dish and the basting
Fresh bay leaves, 20
Fresh orange juice, strained, 1/3 cup (80 ml)
Dry white wine, 2 tbsp (30 ml)
Extra virgin olive oil, 1 tbsp (15 ml)
For finishing
Orange, cut into 8 thin half moons, 1
Toasted breadcrumb from the filling, 2 tbsp
Flat leaf parsley leaves, 12
Extra virgin olive oil, a few drops
Flaky sea salt, a pinch
Preparation
Butterflying the sardines
Scale each sardine with the back of a knife, snap the head off and pull the gut out with it. Open the belly, press the fish flat skin down, and lift the backbone away from the tail towards the head with the ribs attached. Leave the tail on the flesh: it is the point of the shape. Refrigerate the fillets uncovered for 20 minutes, unsalted.
Toasting the breadcrumb
Warm the 1/4 cup (60 ml) of oil in a wide pan over medium heat, add the breadcrumb and stir continuously for 4 to 5 minutes until it is the colour of light honey. Crumb burns in seconds, so take it off one shade lighter than you want and turn it onto a cold tray. Reserve 2 tablespoons for the garnish.
Weighing the filling
Work the anchovy, garlic, orange zest, raisins, pine nuts, parsley, pecorino, salt and pepper into the warm crumb until it holds together when squeezed, then cool it and weigh it. Sixteen sardines need about 10 oz (285 g) of filling, 0.35 oz (10 g) each. Weigh the first three portions until your hand knows the amount.
Filling and rolling
Lay a fillet skin down with the tail away from you, season it now with salt and pepper, and spread one portion of filling over the flesh, leaving the last half inch by the tail bare. Roll firmly from the head end towards the tail, pressing so no air is trapped, and finish with the tail standing free.
Setting the ranks in the dish
Heat the oven to 475°F (245°C) with a rack in the upper third and oil a shallow dish just large enough for sixteen rolls in tight ranks. Stand them in rows, each leaning on the next, with a bay leaf between every two and one at the end of each row. The rolls must touch and the dish must be full.
Baking hot and short
Stir the orange juice, wine and remaining oil together and pour it around the base of the rolls, never over the crumb. Brush the tops with oil and bake for 8 to 9 minutes, no longer. They are done when the crumb has taken a second colour, the tails have curled crisp and the liquid has reduced to a glaze.
Resting and finishing
Let the dish stand for 4 minutes so the juice in the crumb redistributes instead of running out, laying the orange half moons on the hot dish for the last minute. Season with flaky salt and lift the rolls out with an offset spatula, taking a spoonful of glaze with each portion.
Plating
Serve four rolls per person on a warm plate, not a hot one. The dish eats best at around 140°F (60°C), warm enough that the oil in the crumb is fragrant, not so hot that the orange turns bitter. Arrange the rolls in a single rank rather than a circle, all tails the same way and slightly raised, because the whole point is reading them as a row of small birds.
Push two warmed orange half moons in among them and lay one bay leaf at the front. Spoon a little of the reduced glaze along the base of the rolls, never over their tops, where it would soften the crust. Finish with the reserved crumb in a narrow line beside them, three parsley leaves and a few drops of raw oil. No lemon wedge: the orange is the citrus here.
Professional Technique
A butterflied sardine is a sheet of muscle three to four millimetres thick, and heat crosses it almost instantly. The oven is therefore not there to cook the sardine at all: the fish is done within ninety seconds of the dish going in, whatever the oven is doing. Everything after that is spent on the crumb. Hence 475°F (245°C) for 8 to 9 minutes and not 350°F (175°C) for 20, which reaches the same crumb colour eleven minutes later, by which time the fillet tastes of dried fish. Time is the only real parameter here, temperature only the tool for shortening it.
The arrangement in the dish is a matter of exposed surface. A roll alone in a large tray gives its whole outside to radiant heat and loses moisture from every direction. Wedged into a tight rank it exposes perhaps a third of its surface, so each sardine shields the one beside it and the shielded faces sit in a pocket of humid air made by the neighbours' own steam. That is why the pan must be the right size: sixteen rolls in a dish built for sixteen come out uniformly moist, the same sixteen on a sheet pan come out with dry edges and hard tails.
The third variable is the ratio of filling weight to fish weight, and it has a hard ceiling. A butterflied sardine of this size weighs about 1 1/4 oz (35 g) and takes 0.35 oz (10 g) of filling, a little under a third of its weight. Past a third the roll fails, for two reasons at once. The fillet is a short lever: around too much volume it cannot complete a full turn, so there is no overlap of flesh on flesh and it holds by friction alone. And the crumb swells as it takes up oil and juice, so the volume inside grows while the fillet, contracting as its proteins set, is trying to get smaller.
The bay leaves are the least understood part of the dish, and they are not there for perfume. A fresh leaf is a rigid sheet about half a millimetre thick with a waxy cuticle on both faces, which makes it a poor conductor of heat and an excellent barrier. Pushed between two rolls it stops the crumb surfaces welding into one mass as their starch sets, so sixteen separate pieces come out instead of a slab. It holds a channel open for steam, keeping the shielded faces humid without going soggy. And it is stiff enough to hold the rolls upright, so the tails stay clear of the pan floor and crisp in the air. The aroma is a by product of a structural decision, which is why dried leaves will not do.
Texture and Moisture Control
The crumb has to arrive in two conditions at once: crisp outside and moist in the centre where it has taken up the fish juice. That split is achieved before the dish goes into the oven, by toasting the crumb in oil. A raw filling has to drive off its own water before it can brown, which takes minutes the sardine does not have, while a crumb toasted in oil arrives golden and needs only a final surface colour. The fat also makes it waterproof enough to survive nine minutes against a wet fillet.
Salt timing runs the opposite way to most fish cookery. The sardines are salted at the moment of rolling, because salt on a three millimetre fillet draws moisture to the surface within minutes and that moisture goes into the crumb: twenty minutes uncovered dries the surface, twenty minutes salted would wet it. The same logic governs the liquid, which becomes steam and glaze on the floor of the dish but dissolves the crust if poured over the top. The four minute rest is the last control, long enough for the free juice to be absorbed and short enough that the crust stays crisp.
Professional Mise en Place
The dish can be held fully rolled and the oven stage is nine minutes, so service is straightforward provided the rolling is done ahead.
Equipment and tools
Small flexible knife and a scaler
Wire rack over a tray, for the open fillets
Shallow baking dish sized for sixteen rolls in tight ranks
Small offset spatula and a pastry brush
Prepared ahead
Sardines butterflied, up to 6 hours ahead, refrigerated
Filling toasted, mixed and cooled, up to 1 day ahead, airtight
Rolls filled and set in the dish with the bay leaves, up to 3 hours ahead, refrigerated
Orange juice, wine and oil measured in one jug
Service setup
Oven at full temperature 20 minutes before the dish goes in
Dish out of the refrigerator 15 minutes before baking
Timer set for 7 minutes, then judged by eye to 9
Plates warm, not hot, around 120°F (50°C)
Plating within 4 minutes of the dish leaving the oven
Chef Tips
Buy the sardines whole and butterfly them yourself, two or three more than you need. Fishmonger butterflied sardines are usually machine split and have lost the tail, which is the reason the dish has its name. A fillet torn while learning goes into the filling.
Use coarse dry crumb from a real durum loaf, not fine commercial crumb and not fresh soft crumb. Fine crumb packs into a paste that cannot crisp, fresh crumb carries too much water. Dry torn day old bread in a low oven and break it down to coarse sand.
Taste the filling for salt only when it is cold. Warm crumb tastes under seasoned, and anchovy and pecorino are both salty, so a filling corrected while hot is almost always too salty on the plate. If it is flat when cold, add anchovy rather than salt.
Rehearse the rolling with one fillet and 10 g of filling before committing the batch. You are checking that the fillet completes a full turn and the flesh overlaps itself. If it does not, your sardines are smaller than these and the portion drops to 8 g.
Common Mistakes
Baking at a moderate temperature for a long time. A three millimetre fillet cooks in ninety seconds and then dries. Twenty minutes at 350°F (175°C) gives the same crumb colour as nine at 475°F (245°C) and a grey fibrous fish.
Overfilling the rolls. Past a third of the fillet's weight the roll cannot complete a turn and unwinds in the oven as the crumb swells. Take filling out of a roll that springs open.
Spreading the rolls across a large pan. A roll with air on every side loses moisture from every side. Use a dish the rolls fill completely, and crowd them into one corner if the only dish is too big.
Using dried bay leaves. A dried leaf crumbles under the pressure of the rolls and cannot hold them apart and upright. Use fresh, or leave them out and accept that the rolls will stick.
Wine Pairing
Etna Bianco DOC: The best match on the list and a Sicilian one. Carricante grown on volcanic soil at altitude keeps an unusually high acidity for a southern white, and that acidity cuts the oil the crumb is saturated with. The saline finish sits alongside the anchovy rather than competing, and the smoky note picks up the crumb.
Grillo Sicilia DOC: The everyday bottle of western Sicily, the wine this dish grew up beside. Grillo has ripe stone fruit and a citrus peel bitterness on the finish, and that bitterness runs alongside the orange zest and stops the raisins reading as sweet. Body enough for the pecorino.
Franciacorta DOCG: A metodo classico bottle earns its place because of the crust. The bead scrubs the fat of the fried crumb off the palate as no still wine manages, and the lees ageing brings a bread and nut character parallel to the filling. Choose a non vintage brut: the mousse is doing the work.
Alto Adige Gewürztraminer DOC: A deliberate contrast, for anyone who wants the sweet and savoury tension in the filling brought forward. Dry Gewürztraminer is intense, all rose, lychee and candied peel, meeting the raisins and orange zest head on while the wine finishes dry. Serve it well chilled.
Cerasuolo di Vittoria DOCG: The red option, from the south east of the island. The Frappato gives bright cherry and almost no tannin, which makes it safe next to an oily fish, while the Nero d'Avola supplies body for the anchovy. Serve it cool, around 57°F (14°C).
Storage & Reheating
This is a dish to eat the day it is baked, so store the components rather than the plate. The filling keeps airtight at cool room temperature for 2 days and refrigerated for 4, and three minutes in a dry pan restores the crispness. Rolls filled and set in their dish keep refrigerated for up to 3 hours before baking, the useful way to get ahead.
Baked rolls keep refrigerated in a sealed container for up to 2 days. Reheat them uncovered at 400°F (205°C) for 4 to 5 minutes with a teaspoon of water on the floor of the dish. Avoid the microwave: it steams the crumb into paste and turns the fish rubbery. Cold they are very good as an antipasto the next day, and many Sicilian households prefer them that way.
Do not freeze the baked rolls: the crumb takes up the water released on thawing and the thin flesh breaks apart. The filling alone freezes for 2 months. Sardines already frozen once can be used, but butterfly them very cold and reduce the filling to 8 g.
Nutrition
Per serving, based on 4 main course portions of 4 rolls each:
Calories: 560 kcal
Total Fat: 36 g
Saturated Fat: 6 g
Trans Fat: 0 g
Unsaturated Fat: 29 g
Cholesterol: 95 mg
Sodium: 720 mg
Total Carbohydrates: 30 g
Fiber: 2 g
Total Sugars: 9 g
Added Sugars: 0 g
Protein: 31 g
Lactose: 0.2 g
Principal micronutrients: omega 3 fatty acids, vitamin B12, vitamin D, calcium, selenium, iodine, phosphorus, niacin
These figures are estimates. Sodium varies most, since it depends on how well the salt packed anchovies are rinsed and on the saltiness of the pecorino.
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