Recipes serve four unless stated otherwise
SPAGHETTI WITH FRESH SARDINE SAUCE, BLACK OLIVES AND PINE NUTS
500g sardines, scaled, filleted and cleaned
olive oil
3 garlic cloves, smashed
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
bunch parsley, finely chopped
spaghetti for four
100g black olives, pitted and chopped
1 lemon
30g pine nuts, toasted
Heat four tablespoons of olive oil over a moderate heat. You don't want the oil to get too hot.
Add the garlic and saute for five minutes or until just turning golden. Remove and discard the garlic, then add the chilli flakes.
Add the parsley to the oil and stir. Season the sardine fillets with salt and pepper and lay on top of the parsley and oil. Cook for two minutes, remove from the heat and set aside.
Cook the spaghetti in plenty of boiling salted water and drain, reserving a little of the water.
Add the sardines to the pasta, along with a generous slug of olive oil and the black olives. Check and correct the seasoning. You may need to add a little of the cooking water to make the sauce liquid enough.
Squeeze lemon juice over to taste and serve with the pine nuts.
FRESH SARDINE 'SANDWICHES'
50g capers
50g black olives
50g pine nuts, lightly toasted
bunch parsley
1 garlic clove, finely chopped
1 tsp finely chopped sage
½ tsp finely chopped rosemary
1 tbsp finely chopped shallot
100g breadcrumbs
olive oil
1 lemon
500g sardines, scaled, beheaded, cleaned and backbone removed
bay leaves
Finely chop the capers, black olives and pine nuts, then add to the parsley, garlic, sage, rosemary, shallot and breadcrumbs. Drizzle with a couple of tablespoons of olive oil and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice. Spread the mixture inside each sardine and fold one fillet over the other to give you a "sandwich".
Lightly oil a baking tray and preheat the oven to 200 degrees/gas six. Lay each sandwich on top of a bay leaf and place on the oiled roasting tray. Bake in the oven for 10-15 minutes or until golden and cooked through. Serve with a light salad.
SALT-BATH SARDINES
This is a recipe from the just-published Food from Fire by Charles Campion (Mitchell Beazley, £16.99). He has nuggets of wisdom on everything to do with an open fire, plus lots of recipes like this one, which do just a neat side-slip on the usual but present you with something entirely different. Serves six.
18 large sardines
a good amount of coarse salt for the bath
25ml olive oil
lemon juice
You can happily cook sardines without gutting them - the innards add a good flavour to the fish. Start by washing the sardines. Then sprinkle a ½cm layer of salt on to a flat tray, add the sardines, and nestle them down into the salt. Cover completely with another layer of salt and set aside in the refrigerator for at least an hour (or up to two). This will firm the fish before grilling.
Take the fish out of the salt and brush off most of the grains. Either arrange the fish on a grilling frame or take two skewers and thread several sardines on to them, like the treads of a ladder; both these approaches are designed to make turning the fish easier. Brush the fish with a little oil.
Get the coals hot and cook the fish. They should take about 10 minutes, depending on the size of the fish - five minutes for the first side, three to five minutes for the second. Keep brushing with olive oil. The skin starting to blister is one sign that they are nearly cooked.
When sardines are done, the fin on the top of the body will pull out cleanly. Remove from the grill frame or skewers and season with salt, pepper and lemon juice