Pasta with sardines ("Pasta chi sardi")

Pasta with sardines ("Pasta chi sardi"), combination of strong and contrasting flavors, is one of the most famous Sicilian dishes in the World, that will surprise you for its unique and extraordinary taste. There are several versions of this recipe prepared with absolutely typical ingredients of the Sicilian territory as sweet fennel or ingredients which are entered for centuries in the island cuisine as pine nuts, imported at the time of Arab domination. Some of this recipes provide, for example, to bake pasta for few minutes before finishing the cooking, or, instead, to add tomato sauce, as is customary in the Agrigento area. I present you the version that is prepared in Palermo, where the pasta with sardines is considered one of the most traditional dishes and cooked for the feast of Santa Rosalia and St. Joseph (now called Father's Day).

First of all clean the sweet fennel, taking care to remove the toughest sprigs, rinse it quickly and put to boil in a pot with plentiful salt water for 20 minutes. Once cooked, remove the fennel from the pot but don't throw its cooking water, reserve it aside because you will need later. Dry fennel with blotting paper and cut into pieces.





Meanwhile clean the sardines. Remove heads, tails, plugs, bowels and, finally, open them in half lenghtwise. Rinse carefully them, dry with blotting paper, then, cut into small pieces (but not too small) and store. Now slice thinly the onion  and brown it in a big pan with two spoons of extravirgin oil, add the anchovy fillets and let them "melt" until they become a sort of sauce creamy. At this point add the sardines and fry everything for about 3-4 minutes.

In the frying pan add the grape passolina, the pine nuits, the sweet fennel, 4 teaspoons of salt and 2 teaspoons of fresh ground black pepper. Take care to mix this seasoning with delicacy and, if it seems necessary, add 1 tablespoon of the sweet fennel cooking water, that you have held aside. Let cook for about 15 minutes. In the meantime, put on the gas the pot with remained fennel cooking water (if it's necessary add more water) in which you will cook the bucatini. In another pan, pour 1 tablespoon of extravirgin olive oil and add the bread-crumbs, let toats it until it is golden brown, but attention not to make it burn.

When pasta will be cooked drain it well, then pour into the pan with the seasoning and mix everything gently, keeping the gas flame to a minimum. After plating  pasta, sprinkle each portion with abundant bread-crumbs and bring on the table.





I suggest you to accompany the pasta with sardines with a vintage and flavored white wine, well frozen.

Doses for four people:

- 500 grams/1 lb of bucatini pasta
- 500 grams/1 lb of sweet fennel (if you don't find it, you can use the green part of fennel but the final taste will be not the same)
- 500 grams/1 lb of fresch sarde (sarde are also known as sardines)
- 50 grams/2 oz of grape passolina (I suggest you to don't use rainsins or grape sultana because are too sweet)
- 50 grams/2 oz of pine nuts
- 3 salted anchovies
- 1 white onion
- bread-crumbs (3/4 tablespoons)
- extravirgin olive oil
- salt
- fresh ground black pepper