{"id":1605,"date":"2016-10-28T11:00:40","date_gmt":"2016-10-28T00:30:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/?p=1605"},"modified":"2016-11-04T16:12:43","modified_gmt":"2016-11-04T05:42:43","slug":"baked-stuffed-sardines","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/2016\/10\/baked-stuffed-sardines\/","title":{"rendered":"Baked Stuffed Sardines"},"content":{"rendered":"

Victoria Cosford’s\u00a0<\/em>Amore and Amaretti <\/a>is a food-lover’s delight: a romance, an escape and a tribute to Italian cooking all in one.<\/em><\/p>\n

Here, she describes old widower Annunzio, with whom she had to share a flat at Portoferraio while they were both working at the same restaurant. At first she is daunted by the old\u00a0man, but soon she finds comfort in his gentleness and eccentricity, not to mention his baked stuff sardines \u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Annunzio soaks his underwear in Omino Bianco bleach; returning\u00a0to our apartment, I see the line of large, blindingly white square\u00a0underpants and billowing singlets which marks his bedroom\u00a0window. Each evening before work, he and I pause briefly for a\u00a0spumantino<\/em> at the same bar.<\/p>\n

At night after Annunzio and I have scrubbed the kitchen\u00a0down, we set up a small table and two chairs out the back of the\u00a0kitchen and have our dinners. I only ever eat two things, which\u00a0I alternate: char-grilled swordfish with Annunzio\u2019s lemon-olive\u00a0oil emulsion drizzled over the top, or bulgy buffalo mozzarella\u00a0sliced with ovals of sweet San Marzano tomatoes and spicy basil.\u00a0This too is Annunzio\u2019s favourite meal, the tomatoes at their peak\u00a0of ripeness, their glossy egg shapes sliced vertically and arranged\u00a0over the cheese.<\/p>\n

All Annunzio\u2019s movements are ponderous. He rotates his\u00a0thick fingers slowly over the plate, salt and pepper scattering.\u00a0The basil leaves, the new green olive oil, and then the slow messy\u00a0business of eating \u2013 teeth clicking, oil spraying, bread sopping\u00a0up the juices and gumming his conversation. We both eat too\u00a0much bread and drink too much wine, and then wander, two\u00a0unlikely friends, down to Bar Roma at the water\u2019s edge to sit\u00a0watching the boats. Annunzio tells me stories from his life over\u00a0his baby whisky; I spoon pistachio-green gelato into my mouth\u00a0from a silver dish and feel safe and very young.<\/p>\n

Annunzio\u2019s stories all follow the same pattern: past restaurants\u00a0he has owned or managed, which failed, leaving him jobless,\u00a0defeated, disillusioned and desperately poor. People he had\u00a0trusted who had turned their backs; countries he had lived in,\u00a0whose languages he had learned, which had finally disenchanted \u00a0him. The woman he should have married and whom he still loves\u00a0instead of the sick woman who was his wife. His huge yellow teeth\u00a0seem to bite something \u2013 perhaps the air \u2013 as he speaks. The\u00a0clicking boats with lives of their own, their rhythmic nodding,\u00a0canvas clapping, are like some massive beast slumbering restlessly.\u00a0That he can make me feel like this \u2013 sweet somehow, and pure,\u00a0and uncorrupted \u2013 is one of the best reasons for loving him.<\/p>\n

Annunzio\u2019s blunt fingers press mixture into splayed sardines.\u00a0L\u2019impasto<\/em> consists of bread soaked in milk, finely chopped parsley\u00a0and garlic, ground mortadella, grated parmesan, sultanas and\u00a0pine nuts. He shows me how to pinch up the sides of the sardines\u00a0and place them in neat rows in a baking tray, slipping a bay leaf\u00a0in between each. Then he splashes white wine over the top and\u00a0bakes them for about fifteen minutes.<\/p>\n

Sarde al Beccafico<\/strong><\/p>\n

(Baked stuffed sardines)<\/strong><\/p>\n

2 slices day-old rustic bread
\nMilk
\n2 tablespoons sultanas
\n2 tablespoons pine nuts
\n80\u2013100 grams mortadella, as finely chopped\u00a0as possible
\n2 tablespoons grana or parmesan, freshly grated
\nGrated rind 1 lemon
\n2 fat cloves of garlic, finely chopped
\n2<\/span>\/3 <\/span>bunch parsley, finely chopped
\nSalt and pepper
\n750 grams fresh sardines, filleted and butterflied
\nBay leaves
\nWhite wine
\nOlive oil<\/p>\n

Preheat oven to 200 \u00b0C. Soak bread in milk briefly, then\u00a0squeeze dry. Place in a bowl together with sultanas,\u00a0pine nuts, mortadella, cheese, lemon rind, garlic and\u00a0parsley, season with salt and pepper and combine well.\u00a0Place about a teaspoon of mixture in the middle of\u00a0each sardine and arrange on baking tray with a bay leaf\u00a0between each. Sprinkle wine over the top and drizzle\u00a0with olive oil. Bake for 10 to 15 minutes. Serve as part\u00a0of an antipasto.<\/p>\n

\"Amore<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Victoria Cosford’s\u00a0Amore and Amaretti is a food-lover’s delight: a romance, an escape and a tribute to Italian cooking all in one. Here, she describes old widower Annunzio, with whom she had to share a flat at Portoferraio while they were … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":true,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[107,420],"tags":[142,460,426,66,458,459,457],"class_list":["post-1605","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-extract","category-recipes","tag-amore-and-amaretti","tag-chef-stories","tag-cooking","tag-recipe","tag-sardines","tag-slow-food","tag-victoria-cosford"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4v1Of-pT","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1605"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1625,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1605\/revisions\/1625"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1605"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1605"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.wakefieldpress.com.au\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1605"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}