"A pasta chi sardi". Pasta with sardines

The origin of this dish is Arab, the legend tells that was invented by the cook of a general Arab who landed in Sicily was in precarious situations.

To feed the troops, the cook thought to take advantage of what nature offered him, and invented a dish that was enriched over the centuries up to the traditional recipe.

Already the Romans and the Greeks enriched their dishes with wild fennel. And is interesting to the use of pine nuts which has antiseptic qualities, for what was a poor kitchen, where it was difficult to find fresh fish and meat, was intended to avoid some probable poisoning.

photo Judy Witts

"The pasta chi sardi" is one of the most original dishes of Palermo, which combines very different elements, but whose combination is delicious and is a perfect harmony between and sweet and sour typical of Sicilian cuisine of Arabic origin.

photo Judy Witts

There is the blue fish in our seas, there is the dried fruit (sultanas and pine nuts), there is the flavor of wild fennel and the aroma and yellow color of a spice that is so precious, the saffron, all combined with the particular type of pasta, the bucatini, whose characteristic is “to jump on the flat”, and that above all must do the "scruscio" (noise) when the Palermitano eats this pasta with passion!

photo Judy Witts

RECIPE

Ingredients: For five persons

500 g of fresh sardines, 500 grams of bucatini, 500 g of fennel Mountain, 2 medium onions, 3 salted anchovies, 50 g of raisins and pine nuts for many, a sachet of saffron, olive oil, salt and pepper.

Boil for about twenty minutes fennel in salt water, the same that you will use after for boil the pasta (4 liters for 500 g of pasta), drain and chop. Hold by the water. In a pan, cook the sardines just cleaned in 1 dl of olive oil (one minute per side),after, put the cooked sardines in a dish. Use the same pan to sauté with oil the finely sliced onions , then combine aniseed, sardines, raisins, the pine nuts, salt and pepper. Cook over low heat, stirring to mix the sauce. After about twenty minutes, add the anchovies, which were desalted, washed, dried and finally dissolved in a pan with a tablespoon of hot oil. Bake again for 15 minutes, stirring and then add a bag of saffron, dissolved in a tablespoon of water.Putting Meanwhile cook the pasta in the cooking water of fennel. Drain "al dente" (Not too cook) and add it to the sauce.

For this occasion I publish a poem in sicilian dialect (with the English translation) of my mother Emilia Merenda on this dish so original.

A PASTA CHI SARDI

Finuccheddu di muntagna crisciutu ‘n’natura
e poi ci coci la pasta ni’ l’acqua di cuttura
e pi’ li balatara cchiù fini
hannu a essiri sulu maccarruncini.
Passulina e pignoli e ‘na cipudda ‘ngranciata
anticchia ‘i zafaranu e ‘na sarda salata,
l’ogghiu sempri ginirusu
arriminari spissu senza essiri lagnusu.
Poi ‘na manata di sardi frischi e argintati
e dintra la conza vannu ‘mmiscati,
senza spini e allinguati
vasinnò si pò moriri affucati.
La pasta avi ‘a ristari ‘ngridda,
ca’ mentri la manci sata comu n’ancidda
ca’ sulu a talialla è un veru priu
e poi a mancialla iu m’arricriu.
Tu, nun po’ capiri si nun l’ha’ tastatu mai,
ma si la manci, ti fa scurdari i guai.

PASTA WITH SARDINES
Fennel mountain grown naturally
and then cook pasta in the cooking water
and for the most sensitive
should only be maccheroncini.
Raisins and pine nuts and onion browned,
a anchovy saffron and salt,
oil always generous
stir often without being inactive.
Then a handful of fresh "silver" sardines
without thorns.
otherwise you can die suffocated.
The pasta should remain "al dente" (not too cook),
that you can eat, while the pasta jumps in the dish, and is a real pleasure
and then eat it is a satisfaction.
You, you can not tell whether you have ever tasted,
but if you eat, it makes you forget all your troubles.