“She broke her fast on sardines, fried crisp in pepper oil and served so hot they burned her fingers. She mopped up the leftover oil with a chunk of bread torn off the end of Umma’s morning loaf and washed it all down with a cup of watered wine, savoring the tastes and the smells, the rough feel of the crust beneath her fingers, the slickness of the oil, the sting of the hot pepper when it got into the half-healed scrape on the back of the hand. Hear, smell, taste, feel, she reminded herself. There are many ways to know the world for those who cannot see.” -A Dance with Dragons
Breakfast in Braavos, fried sardines
Thoughts:
NOMSCH.
What a unique and satisfying breakfast! The sardines sizzle and spit as they cook in the peppery oil, giving off the slightest seafood smell. The skin and breading cooks to a wonderful crispy texture that crunches as you chew. The pepper cooks into that outer layer, and melds with the tender, flaky fish on the inside. Umma’s Olive Bread is ideal for swiping up the leftover peppery oil from the plate, just as the Blind Girl did, and a splash of watered wine rounds out the whole meal.
Make it at Home:
Prep: ~15 minutes Bread: Day before
Makes 1 serving
Cook’s Notes: I used both olive oil and red pepper flakes, but if you have a red pepper-infused oil, feel free to use that- it should work very well! Also, most of the tiny rib bones are small enough to eat, but be mindful of larger bones.
Ingredients:
- 4 fresh sardines, cleaned and gutted
- 1/2 cup corn meal
- 1 Tbs kosher salt
- 1 cup olive oil
- 1/2 tsp. red pepper flakes, plus more to taste
- loaf of Umma’s Bread (get the recipe)
- watered wine (slightly sour is best)
On a small plate, combine the corn meal and salt. Dip the sardines in this mixture, making sure to cover thoroughly.
In a skillet or frying pan, combine the olive oil and red pepper. Bring to medium high heat, and add the sardines. Flip the fish occasionally, and cook until both sides are a nice golden brown. Remove to a plate.
Serve the cooked fish alongside some of Umma’s Loaf, or another rustic Italian-style bread. Watered wine and extra olives will also pair nicely. Consider adding just a small splash of vinegar to the watered wine, which will counter the oil of the sardines beautifully
In small fish such as these the spine’s safe to eat, especially since it’s naturaly segmented. It’s also quite rich in calcium
My mother used to do something similar to freshwater smelt (4-6 inches long) when I was young. (Unfortunately, fresh sardines are not easily obtained locally.) My brother and I used to eat them, bones and all on the smaller ones, with some ketchup and crusty bread. It was amazing as I’m sure this is. :)
The thought of watered wine makes my teeth gnash. I did a Google and it was not only common in the “dark” ages, but was really wine flavored water. 4 – 5 parts water to one part wine. Again, just a quick look – not research, house hold wine was not aged. And a few drops of honey were commonly added.
With the olives and olive loaf – and all that oil, I’d go with a bit of acid. Pinot grigio, water and a few drops of honey. (White with fish!)
In the interest of alchemy, I did try a three to one with pinot gris and a bit of honey. It wasn’t awful.
It was also common for the Romans. Long term aged wine that is drunk without any added water is mostly a (semi-)modern thing. During the middle ages, new wine was more valuable than old wine (it didn’t store well). I’m too lazy to cite anything, but this is the sort of thing I research :D
We used to have watered wine as kids, at about this ratio. Even now I often do half-and-half of a strong red or retsina.
You can use an Italian Orvieto or a Kabinett (dry) Riesling, either German or Alsatian — the fruity, flowery Riesling makes a great combo with spicy-hot Asian food, so there’s no reason it wouldn’t go with the pepper-oil sardines. But I’d just use seasoned white flour instead of cornmeal. Also, roasted red peppers sliced and tossed with aged sherry vinegar, Spanish arbequina olive oil (L’Estornell extra virgin, for example) and some minced cilantro are excellent with pan-roasted sardines — all very Spanish! In which case Vina del Sol dry white or any white Rioja would go well with your water.
Thank you! Can’t wait to make it again with these tips in mind! And I do like the idea of starting the day with wine…
I’ve just noticed your new website feature where a second picture shows up instead of the banner when you go to a recipe. I had to go back through the last few recipes and see them all — fortunately I caught on before you added pages and pages of recipes.
I really want to make the bread, and the sardines and the olives in the olive bread sound great together.
Fresh sardines (or smelt) aren’t available on the Gulf Coast. This sounds really good, however, and fish fingers are just not going to make it as a substitute. Any suggestions on what I might use instead?
Try fresh anchovies, Bay and Stripped Anchovies are native to the gulf coast (I took some marine biology classes in Mississippi) and would probably work pretty well for this application. We would eat the anchovies raw right off the boat.
Scary, but except for the wine, this is a fairly normal once or twice a month breakfast for me when sardines are available.
We have several upscale sources for olive bread, although I will try your recipe next time.
For the sardines we brush them with olive oil infused with piri-piri and then sprinkle them inside and out with course sea salt. Then we grill them.
Re: watered wine, throughout much of history, water was generally unsafe to drink in most places so cutting the water with a bit of alcohol both flavored the water and killed off some germs at the same time. A “sweet well or spring” (that is, a source of good water) was a big deal.
I got so hungry the first time I read that. Now 10X more now that I see it!!! :):::
Wine spritzers are watered wine, if it helps :-) The breakfast sounds delicious.
I don’t know the context of this–historical, fantasy, or a mix. It is worth noting that your red pepper flakes are from a capsicum pepper, hence New World, hence not available in medieval Europe. I’m not sure how different the effect would be if you used black pepper or one of the other hot Old World spices.
Duke Cariadoc! I’m delighted that you’ve found the blog, as I’m a big fan of all your extensive medieval research, especially where food is concerned.
Braavos is a fictional setting, so I went with the pepper I imagined when I read the passage. I usually try to adhere as closely as possible to a medieval pantry, but barring that, opt for a “local” equivalent in our modern world. Braavos is similar to Venice, and is a sort of melting pot of cultures, much as the Mediterranean once was. Aleppo pepper is one of my favorites, but not easily found by a lot of people.
That said, I’d love to try the recipe with some long pepper, and/or grains of paradise. What spices would you suggest?
If you’re worried about solely using pre-Columbian Exchange ingredients, there wouldn’t have been any corn meal either, for that matter. But the Mormont/Jon’s raven is constantly asking for corn, so it’s clearly established in the books to be available in Westeros. If they’ve got corn, we can make a pretty safe assumption that they might have chiles as well.
Corn is used technically in British English to mean any grain with kernels – wheat, barley, etc. Hence why we say ‘sweet corn’.
Like Tillymint said, I think that GRRM is using British English and the ravens are asking for a kernel of wheat or barley or millet or any sort of grain. With that said, GRRM does put sweet corn/maize into ASOIAF. At Joffrey’s wedding, Tyrion eats fried sweet corn fritters. Westeros also has chili peppers, which appear frequently in Dorne and in Essos. The HBO show has potatoes but I do not recall seeing them ever get mentioned in the books.
Do you know…it was considered barbaric to drink wine straight up? It was far more civilized (and for the more well-off) to water the wine half and half. Roman Empire time.
Mmmmm… As for the use of capsicum-based spices, they have chiles in Dorne (remember those long green peppers stuffed with cheese and onions) so I think we can safely assume them to be possibly available in Braavos.
As for the recipe, I’m definitely putting it on my to-do list, just waiting for sardines to be available (I”ll have to wait till summer). I have never eaten sardines for breakfast and it looks like quite an appealing new experience to me.
Do you think this would work with tinned sardines?
Yes, it is delicious! Just pat the fillets dry of excess oil before dipping in breading of your choice.
Yum!
For the pepper oil, I’d actually be inclined to use some chili oil. You can get it at most Asian markets, or make your own by infusing your preferred cooking oil with chili peppers.