Sardines au Parmesan
Sardines? Parmesan? Bread? Yes and yum! This super easy and delicious recipe is an inventive and unique dish to bring to a party as an appetizer or snack. Plus, if you mess up making the sauce as many times as I did, you’ll end up with a tasty egg yolk snack in the middle of cooking, so, bonus!
Ingredients:
- sardines in oil
- lemon juice
- salt and pepper
- French bread
- grated parmesan
- hot oil
- 1 egg yolk
- pinch of flour
Here are my grandmother’s directions with some clarifying additions from me:
- Heat a pan on the stove on medium low.
- Remove the sardines without breaking them and cook them in the pan in their own oil with lemon juice and a pinch of pepper and a little bit of salt. As the sardines are already cooked, only cook them for a few minutes so the flavor from the lemon juice, salt and pepper seeps in. I occasionally spooned the lemon and oil from the pan over the sardines to keep them moist.
- While the sardines are cooking, slice up the French bread into smaller pieces that will be easy to pick up and bite into, and lay the pieces flat on a large dish.
- Remove the sardines, strain them and place them on the bread. Since I cut little round slices of bread, I ended up having to split up the sardines into smaller pieces to fit on each piece of bread.
- Sprinkle grated parmesan over every piece.
- Separately, heat up some oil, perhaps one cup or less. Once it’s heated, lower the heat, and add in one egg yolk and a pinch of flour as a thickening agent. Stir constantly to make the sauce able to coat the sardines. This is where I messed up the most, accidentally cooking up a couple of yolks. They were great for a snack while I was cooking but not what I needed for a sauce. Finally, I was able to make what looked like an unappealing beige sauce, but that’s what the recipe called for, so…
- Cover the sardines with the sauce and serve hot.
I really liked it. Clearly, you have to like or be willing to try sardines in order to make this dish, but I think it’s worth it. Sardines au parmesan was tasty, easy to make and worked well as a snack to bring to a friend’s house for game night. Putting it all together, though, is messy, so next time, I’d put it all together on a baking sheet or dish and then plate them on a serving dish so the finished product looks more presentable.
