Sarde A Beccafico
Ingredients – Serves 6
- 520g of cleaned, scaled, butterflied, head and spine bone removed sardines
- Laurel to Taste
For the Stuffing
- 50g breadcrumbs
- 25g raisins
- 10g parsley
- 25g pine nuts
- 15g anchovy fillets in oil
- 15g sugar
- Salt to taste
- Black pepper to taste
- 20g extra virgin olive oil
For the Topping
- 35g acacia honey
- 10g extra virgin olive oil
- 35g orange juice
Method
To prepare sardines a beccafico, make sure your sardines are already clean (you will need 520 g of butterflied open sardines).
To make the filling: first of all, put the raisins to soak in cold water for about ten minutes. Then pour a drizzle of oil into a pan, add the breadcrumbs and toast it for a couple of minutes over medium heat, stirring constantly.
Meanwhile, chop the parsley and coarsely chop the anchovies. In a bowl pour the breadcrumbs, the drained and squeezed raisins, pine nuts, anchovies, parsley, sugar, salt and pepper.
Mix the whole mixture and set aside. Grease a 20x20cm baking dish and stuff the sardines with the mixture. Arrange a little stuffing on each sardine and roll it up starting from the part of the head, so as to form a roll.
Gradually arrange the sardines inside the pan so that they are close together. Take the bay leaves and arrange them between one roll and another.
At this point, sprinkle the surface with the leftover filling.
For the topping: pour the honey and the orange juice into a small bowl and the oil. Mix everything together beating quickly with a fork, then spread over the sardines using a spoon. Bake in a preheated static oven at 200° C for about 20-25 minutes. Then take it out and serve hot.