Sarde in Saor

the Venetian sailor's preserve: fried sardines buried for a day beneath slow-stewed onions sharpened with vinegar and studded with pine nuts and currants, eaten cold on the night of the Redentore

Origin: Italy

From the journey of Currant.

Saor is Venetian for sapore, savour, and it names a method rather than a dish: fish fried and then laid to steep under a mass of onions cooked soft in oil and sharpened with vinegar. It began as a practical solution to a hard problem, for a sailing city needed fish that would keep aboard ship without ice, and the acid and the oil together did the work. The pine nuts and the currants are the second layer of Venice's history, the Levantine taste for the sweet against the sour, brought home by the merchants who ran the Republic's trade with Greece and the Ottoman lands and who imported the small Corinthian currant by the shipload from Venetian-held Zante and Cephalonia. The dish rose from the galley to the table and finally to the calendar: on the third weekend of July, at the Festa del Redentore, Venetians take boats out onto the Giudecca canal, spread a cloth in the bottom, and eat sarde in saor cold with a glass of white wine whilst the fireworks go up over the basin. It must be made at least a day in advance, and it is better after two.

Ingredients

Fish

800 g fresh sardines, scaled, gutted, heads removed, and boned
100 g plain flour, for dusting
400 ml sunflower or light olive oil, for frying
1 tsp fine sea salt

Saor

1 kg white onions, halved and sliced very thinly
100 ml extra virgin olive oil
150 ml white wine vinegar
100 ml dry white wine
60 g dried currants
50 g pine nuts
2 whole bay leaves
1 tsp fine sea salt
0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper

Method

Soak the currants in warm water for 20 minutes and drain. Warm the 100 ml of olive oil in a wide pan and cook the sliced onions over a low heat, covered, for 25 minutes, stirring often, until entirely soft, sweet, and pale. They must not brown at all.
Add the vinegar, the wine, the bay leaves, the salt, and the pepper to the onions and simmer uncovered for 8 to 10 minutes, until the sharpness has softened and most of the liquid has gone. Stir in the drained currants and the pine nuts and take off the heat.
Pat the sardine fillets thoroughly dry, season with the salt, and dust lightly with flour, shaking off the excess. Heat the frying oil to 180°C and fry them in batches for about 1 minute a side, until pale gold and just firm. Drain on kitchen paper.
In a deep glass or ceramic dish, spread a thin layer of the onion mixture. Lay half the sardines over it in a single close layer, cover completely with onions, add the remaining sardines, and finish with all the remaining onion so that no fish is exposed.
Cover and leave at cool room temperature for 2 hours, then refrigerate for at least 24 hours and ideally 48. Bring back to room temperature for a full hour before serving, with good bread and a glass of dry white wine.

Notes

The dish keeps for four or five days refrigerated and genuinely improves for the first three. The same treatment is given in Venice to soles (sfogi in saor), to prawns, and to fried courgettes, which make an excellent vegetarian version needing only 12 hours' marinating. Some Venetian families add a short cinnamon stick or a few cloves to the onions, a survival of the older spiced saor of the Republic's trading days. If sardines are unavailable, small mackerel fillets or fresh anchovies will do, though anchovies are more fragile and need an even lighter hand in the pan.

The Gastrographer

Name: Sarde in Saor
Prep time: 40 min
Cook time: 35 min
Total time: 25 h
Yield: 6
Cuisine: Italy
Ingredients: 800 g fresh sardines, scaled, gutted, heads removed, and boned; 100 g plain flour, for dusting; 400 ml sunflower or light olive oil, for frying; 1 tsp fine sea salt; 1 kg white onions, halved and sliced very thinly; 100 ml extra virgin olive oil; 150 ml white wine vinegar; 100 ml dry white wine; 60 g dried currants; 50 g pine nuts; 2 whole bay leaves; 1 tsp fine sea salt; 0.5 tsp freshly ground black pepper

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Journey Point Map Key

Ingredient originTrade or transit route

Became a culinary stapleColonial / trade control