Sardines, anchovies, mackerel, tuna and swordfish make up, in Sicily, the phantasmagoric scenography of the local markets. For non-indigenous people, it is always a source of amazing joy to attend the sly and noisy expedients with which the fishmonger incites passers-by to purchase fish. As happens, for example, at the “Vucciria” in Palermo, the ancient and traditional fish market where it is possible to taste excellent “sarde a beccaficu”, a recipe so popular that wherever you go to Sicily it is possible to find a different version of it. The main ones, however, are the three from Palermo, Messina and Catania.
Beccafico sardines are a tasty second course, easy to make in 50ish minutes. The name of this recipe derives from the “figpecker”, a small bird gluttonous of figs, which eating many during the summer becomes very fat and its meat becomes very tasty. The Sicilian nobles, once, used to hunt and then eat them stuffed with their own bowels, but for the common people these birds were a luxury good (today, moreover, a protected species that can no longer be hunted) and therefore they reworked the recipe using the cheapest sardines.
The combination of flavors that mix in this dish makes it a particularly tasty and gluttonous one, certainly to try. Sardines’ rolls are in fact stuffed with a pleasantly sweet mixture made of breadcrumbs, pine nuts and raisins – ingredients that are also found in the famous pasta with sardines. Everything is then covered by an orange perfume emulsion.
Ingredients (for 4 people)
For the sardines
- 520 g of sardines
- Laurel q.s.
For the stuffing
- 70 g of breadcrumbs
- 25 g of raisin
- 10 g of parsley
- 25 g of pine nuts
- 15 g of anchovies in oil
- 15 g of sugar
- Fine salt q.s.
- Black pepper q.s.
- 20 g of extra virgin olive oil
For the emulsion
- 35 g of acacia honey
- 10 g of extra virgin olive oil
- 35 g of orange juice
How to make beccafico sarde
To make the beccafico sardines, be sure that your sardines are already clean and open as if they were a book. Then start preparing the filling. First, rinse and then soak the raisins in cold water for about ten minutes. Pour a drizzle of oil into a pan, add the breadcrumbs and toast it for a couple of minutes on medium heat, stirring constantly, until it is golden in the nuance that in Sicily is called “tunic of a monk”.
In the meantime, chop the parsley and coarsely cut the anchovies. In a bowl, pour the breadcrumbs, the drained and squeezed raisins, the pine nuts, the anchovies, the parsley, the sugar, salt and pepper. Mix everything and keep it aside for a moment.
Grease a 20×20 baking dish of oil and start stuffing the sardines. Place a little filling on each sardine and roll it up. Arrange the rolls of sardines in the oiled pan alternating the laurel leaves and tightening them well so that they support each other and do not open during cooking. To facilitate the task of holding the filling together, you can use a toothpick in the rolls, having the foresight to proceed gently so as not to break the fish. At this point, sprinkle the sardines with the advanced filling.
Now all that remains is to prepare the emulsion. Pour honey, orange juice and oil into a bowl. Emulsify quickly with a fork, then spread the emulsion on the sardines using a spoon. Bake in a preheated oven at 200° for about 20-25 minutes, then take out of the oven and enjoy this traditional Sicilian second course. If you do not immediately consume your stuffed sardines, you can keep them in the fridge for a couple of days at most.