Pasta with sardines

recipe from Martino Ragusa

A classic Sicilian cuisine, a triumph secured to the table.

Ingredients for 4 people

320 g of bucatini
600 g of fresh sardines
2 anchovies (or sardines), salted or pickled
250 g of fennel
50 g of pine nuts
50 g raisins
50 g almonds
4 tablespoons of breadcrumbs
70 g of white onion
1 clove of garlic
1 sachet of saffron
extra virgin olive oil
black pepper, freshly ground
salt

Preparation

Toast the breadcrumbs in a nonstick frying pan with a few drops of oil, stirring constantly until it gets a nice golden color.
Dip the almonds for 2 minutes in boiling water, peel them and toast in a little oil.
Scale sardines, cut off the head and tail, cut all the fins, then open them like a book and remove the bones gently without breaking them.
Make sure you have removed everything that is not clean pulp wash them gently and place them to drain lie flat without overlapping.
In a glass of heated oil in a large sauté pan, make well dry sardines to roast both side.
Once golden, pick them up with slotted spoon and place them in the colander to drain.
Make it two equal parts, by selecting one of the two possibly those broken.
Keep them all in warm blankets with a plate. Boil the soft part of the fennel in an uncovered pot for 5 minutes, calculated from the recovery of the boil in plenty of salted water than it takes to cook the pasta.
Draw the fennel with a slotted spoon, drain well, let them cool and chop the garlic and onion.
Keep the water.
Heat on low heat 4 tablespoons of oil in a wide frying pan with high sides and melt the anchovies (or sardines) desalted or drained and deboned.
Stir fry the chopped fennel with onion and garlic.
Add raisins soaked in warm water, pine nuts and sardines.
Stir with a wooden spoon, and when it’s all well wilted, add a few tablespoons of water of fennel.
When the mixture reaches the consistency of a soft sauce (in approximately 15 minutes) joined saffron dissolved in half glass of water from the fennel, stir, add pepper and cook for another 2 minutes on low heat.
Boil the pasta in the water of fennel, drain and put in the pan with the sauce adjusting the softness with a little cooking water.
Garnish the pasta on a serving plate with the other sardines and almonds and sprinkle with the toasted bread.

Variant: the oven.
Cook pasta 5 minutes, season, moved into a greased pan with oil and sprinkled with bread crumbs and bake at 180 degrees for 40 minutes.