Fried sardines 

Fried sardines, how to prepare them perfect, a simple recipe, always appreciated, a classic in Roman cuisine, my mom prepared them at least once a week, the fishmonger arrived at home, with his van, and calamari and sardines, or anchovies, were the fish that my mom bought most often, usually cooked fried, which we loved, or occasionally with the sauce, to season pasta. The sardines or fried anchovies, were prepared in a pan as an omelet, putting the sardines in the pan, in hot oil, attached to each other, thus forming a sort of single disc, like an omelet, although in reality it has nothing to do with an omelet. To make them good they had to cook in hot oil, abundant, so as to come out golden and crunchy, and soft inside. Over time I have made some changes to my mother's recipe, I use instead of the classic flour the re-milled semolina, so the crust is perfect, the detached sardines, they are even more crispy, in the end only the appearance changes, the goodness remains the same.

Note

Blue fish are rich in nutrients but also extremely tasty.

Ingredients

1 kg  Sardines

Re-milled semolina to taste

Seed oil  to taste

Salt  to taste

Preparation 

First we clean the sardines, but we can also ask our trusted fishmonger to do it. To clean them, just take off the head, you pull with your hands, and with the head you also pull the entrails, remains the sardine clean with the central bone. Once cleaned, we wash them well under running water, rubbing them slightly. We put them to drain, meanwhile we put on the fire a pan with plenty of seed oil. In a dish we put the re-milled durum wheat semolina. When the oil is hot, we pass the sardines in the flour, making it adhere well, on all sides, so as not to leave water on the sardines, and we drop into the hot oil. We put them separate from each other. We turn them one by one when they are golden. When they are golden on both sides we put them to dry on absorbent paper, suitable for frying, so it does not remain attached to the sardines. In the traditional Roman recipe flour was used, which being finer, made the sardines stick together, putting them close together in hot oil. Then they turned like an omelet, dropping the oil into a bowl, and then reusing it, once the sardines omelet was turned. We serve the sardines with a little salt and lemon to squeeze to taste. They are excellent hot freshly prepared but if they are left over they are also good cold, perhaps seasoned with a little white wine vinegar or you can recycle them to prepare an excellent Spaghettini, in white, or with sauce.