Dry sardine salad

 

This recipe is so unique and the dish tastes so delicious that I must master it and share here. Again, I learnt it from a local Japanese cook book. Dry sardines are very familiar with me since I was small, but I have long not eaten it until now. It must be tens of years. Making this dish brings back so much nostalgia that is hard to explain. At some point I was immersed into the spirit of a beautiful childhood that was long past. 

"It's a reunion with the past, a reverie of childhood's innocence and the artistry of bygone days. In that culinary encounter, the heart finds itself entwined with the echoes of time."

So, firstly you need 20g-40g of dry sardines. You can buy them in any Japanese supermarket. The recipe reminds that you should buy dry sardines made for dashi stock rather than other dry sardines, because they are more intact or unprocessed and have a stronger unami flavor.

Step 1: Fry sardines in a frying pan with 1 tbsp of oil. When sardines change color (from black to brown), move them to kitchen towel to dry out of oil. This step should be less than 10 minutes. Sardines will be very crunchy now.

The aroma brings back memories...

Step 2: Slice carrot (50g, about 1/3 stick), onion (30g, about 1/4 piece), and leek or celery (50g, about 1/2 stick). Slice diagonally as thinly as you can. Soak onion and leak in iced water for 15 minutes, then drain and rinse under running cold water, and dry them by using a salad spinner.

Step 3: Mix all ingredients in Step 1 and Step 2 in a bowl with 2 tbsp of soy sauce, 2 tbsp of vinegar, 1 tbsp of mirin and 1 tbsp of sugar. You can add some fresh chili if you like spicy. Mix until well blended.

Step 4: Cover with plastic wrap and chill in the fridge overnight.

When you take it out the next day, all veggies are so crunchy, rich and robust with unami flavor coming from dry sardines. It is indeed something new to me about dry sardines because in my memory, back in Vietnam, people will just fry sardines with some sugar and fish sauce. Anyway, fried dry sardines are always suitable for beer. So hope you will have some beer next to you when you make some dish with dry sardines.