Pasta Sauce with sardines

 After reading Michael Pollan's "Food Rules", we have been wanting to eat more low-on-the-food-chain fish. This is completely new to both of us so we have no idea where to start. I bought a tin each of sardines and of herring.

Our first effort has been to make pasta sauce with the sardines. We basically used the Fix-it-and-forget-it recipe for italian sausage sauce, but used minced sardines in place of the sausage (and frozen tomatoes in place of the canned diced tomatoes). Freezing the tomatoes whole made it very easy to skin them once they defrosted in the fridge.

We weren't really sure how to process the fish so we just rinsed them and cut them up and threw them in.  I was prepared for an overpowering "fishy" smell, but it turned out rather mild and appetizing.

The final sauce tasted very nice. The not-too-subtle flavor of fish added a lot of depth to the sauce. I just tried a taste. I'll have to update this once we actually try it with some pasta. We got it started late in the day so it wasn't done in the crock pot until after 10:00 pm.


Recipe: 

Mix together in crock pot: 

Whole tomatoes frozen, defrosted, skinned, broken up. 

12 oz can of tomato paste

Can of tomato sauce

Can of sardines (rinsed, finely diced)

Some spices (salt, pepper, long pepper, cubebs, grains of paradise, coriander, oregano, ginger)

A couple Tbs of sugar

Saute:

one chopped onion

Once it is soft, add some minced garlic and a splash of wine to deglaze the pan. 

After this cooks down, add to the crock pot. 

Mix it all up good. 

Cook for hours and hours until it is done.