When I cook Pasta Con Le Sarde (pasta with sardines), an iconic dish from Palermo, I can always count on my guests falling in love with Sicilian food.
This dish is a beautiful celebration of Sicily’s history, combining pasta with the deep flavours of sardines, spring onions (I especially like the green leaves), wild fennel, saffron, currants, fennel bulbs, toasted pine nuts and/or almonds. The crowning touch is a topping of crispy, golden breadcrumbs, sautéed in olive oil. The combination of ingredients is both unexpected and fascinating. But how can a dish so rich with these unique flavours be Italian? Where are the ingredients that one associates with Italian food?
The answer lies in the island’s fascinating history.
Sicily, and especially Palermo, has long been a crossroads of cultures, where various peoples and flavours were absorbed and blended. One of the most influential groups were the Arabs who settled in Sicily and ruled the island from the 9th to the 11th centuries. The Arabs brought with them an array of ingredients and culinary techniques, many of which still permeate Sicilian cooking today. The use of fennel, saffron, almonds, pine nuts, and currants, as well as the habit of combining sweet and savoury elements in one dish, are hallmarks of Arabic influence.
The photos are of Palermo.
A critical ingredient in pasta con le sarde is wild fennel, which contributes a fresh, slightly aniseed flavour to the dish. However, wild fennel has a short growing season and can be difficult to forage, and if you’re making this dish outside of the growing season you may only find stalky, yellowing plants, as I did recently, but I managed to find some fresh shoots. While you can’t replace the wild fennel entirely, you can substitute it with fennel bulbs (preferably with their fronds still attached), which will lend the dish a similar flavour profile. This too is seasonal.
Sometimes, if I am short of fennel, I add some fennel seeds to the pasta water or to the fennel and onions when I am cooking them.
Ingredients:
For Cooking the Pasta: Wild fennel stalks and fronds (if available) to infuse the cooking water.
Recommended Pasta Shape: Bucatini is the traditional choice, but spaghetti or casarecce will also work well.
extra virgin olive oil
500g fresh sardine fillets
4 spring onions, finely chopped
a handful of fennel fronds, finely chopped
1-2 fennel bulb, finely diced
a pinch of saffron (soaked in a little warm water)
50g currants (soaked in water for 10 minutes)
50g – 100g toasted pine nuts and or toasted almonds, roughly chopped
salt and pepper to taste (or a pinch of ground chili for heat)
For the Breadcrumb Topping:
1 cup breadcrumbs made from good quality day-old bread
a pinch of sugar
a sprinkle of ground cinnamon (optional, but adds a nice touch)
grated lemon zest
Instructions:
Prepare the Ingredients:
- Make sure that the sardine fillets are free of bones.
- Chop the spring onions and fennel fronds. Dice the fennel bulbs.
- Soak in a little water the saffron and currants in separate bowls.
Make the Breadcrumb Topping:
- Heat a little olive oil in a pan and add the breadcrumbs.
- Stir in the sugar, cinnamon, and lemon zest.
- Toast the breadcrumbs until golden and fragrant. Set aside.
Prepare the Pasta Water:
- Add fennel stalks and some of the tough fronds in a pot of water, add a little salt and bring the salted water to a boil. Let them simmer for about 30 minutes to infuse the water with flavour.
Cook the Sardine Sauce:
- Heat olive oil in a pan. Sauté the spring onions until soft and fragrant.
- Add the fennel bulb and fronds and cook until softened. You may need to add a splash of water or white wine to help soften the fennel, depending on its texture.
- Stir in the saffron, currants, pine nuts, and almonds. Season with salt and pepper (or chili if you prefer a little heat). Blend the flavours and cook for a few minutes and leave it to rest while you cook the pasta and fry the sardines.
- Drain the solids out of the fennel infused water. Cook the bucatini (or your choice of pasta) according to the package instructions, using the fennel-infused water for a subtle flavour boost. Once the pasta is ready, drain it, reserving a little of the cooking water in case you need it.
- In a separate pan, fry the sardine fillets in a little olive oil. I sometimes add a few greens from a spring onion or a few fennel seeds but it isn’t optional). They will cook quickly, and some may begin to break apart. Break about ¾ of them up slightly and add them to the fennel mixture. Reserve the whole fillets to place on top of the dressed pasta.
Assemble the Dish:
- Toss the cooked pasta into the sardine and fennel mixture, ensuring the flavours are well incorporated. If the sauce seems a little dry, add some reserved pasta cooking water to bring it all together. At this stage I will probably add a splash of extra virgin olive oil.
- Transfer the pasta to a serving dish, top it with the sardines and generously sprinkle with the nuts.
- At this stage you have a choice. You could also top the pasta with some toasted breadcrumbs and place the extra crumbs in a bowl so that eaters can help themselves as they would with grated cheese, or to gently fold the nuts and fillets through the pasta before topping the whole bowl with toasted breadcrumbs.
You can never have enough posts for Pasta Con Le Sarde:
PASTA CON LE SARDE, an iconic Sicilian recipe from Palermo. Cooked at Slow Food Festival Melbourne
