Scapece
- All-purpose flour
- 3 pounds fresh sardines, fresh anchovies, smelts, or other small, whole fish, scaled, cleaned, and filleted
- Extra-virgin olive oil
- Fine freshly made bread crumbs, pan-roasted in olive oil
- 2 heads garlic, the cloves peeled, crushed, and finely minced
- 1 teaspoon saffron threads
- 5 to 6 cups plus 2 tablespoons good white wine vinegar
- Lightly flour the fish and, in a large saute pan over a lively flame, saute them until deep gold in abundant, bubbling olive oil, removing them to absorbent paper towels.
- Continue with the procedure until all the fish are sauteed.
- In a large ceramic vessel, preferably one that is deeper than it is wide, place a layer of the fish.
- Dust the fish generously with the sauteed bread crumbs and strew over a bit of the minced garlic.
- Repeat the process until all the fish, the bread crumbs, and the garlic have been utilized.
- Now make their preserving bath.
- Lightly toast the saffron threads, then dissolve them in 2 tablespoons of warm vinegar.
- In a large pitcher or bowl, mix the remaining vinegar with the dissolved saffron and pour the potion over the layers of fish, immersing them in the bath.
- Should you run short of the vinegar mixture, make another one-quarter or one-third of the recipe, as necessary.
- If your preserving vessel is narrow enough, the suggested amount will be sufficient.
- Cover the fish with a lid of some sort, even baking parchment tied with butchers twine or several thicknesses of aluminum foil and permit the fish to rest in their bath for a day or so in a cool place before presenting them as an antipasto.
- Serve with good, warm bread to take up the juices and rivers of cold white wine.
- The scapece will only improve in flavor as they rest for up to a week or ten days.
flour, fresh sardines, extravirgin olive oil, freshly made bread crumbs, garlic, saffron threads, white wine vinegar
Taken from www.epicurious.com/recipes/food/views/scapece-391120 (may not work)