Sardines Two Ways: Oil-Roasted with Mayo and Pickled Onions, & Pan-Fried with Fried Lemon by Alison Roman

This is a GUEST POST by the one, the extraordinary, Margaret Winchell. As she will soon note below, we struuuuuggled to find fresh sardines. Calling many fish mongerers in Chicago and Michigan proved fruitless, so Margaret got creative. She went out of her way to find fish and friends to eat it, and wrote about it all with her signature spunk and knowledgeable tips

Margaret, thanks for being a #1 supporter of me and this project, in word and in deed. You’re my true friend.

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Let’s get this out of the way: I made two recipes that call for fresh sardines without fresh sardines. If I were a recipe writer, I would roll my eyes at me. But Annie and I both looked high and low for whole, fresh sardines - she, in Chicago, and me, in southwestern Michigan, and we found none. Alison repeatedly notes how oily sardines are, so I planned to sub in a different oily fish. My first choice was mackerel because my research showed them to be similar enough, but that was also not available! So: here we are with rainbow trout. 

While I was working on these dishes, I kept asking myself, how much do you get to deviate from a recipe before you have to acknowledge that you’re making a different dish? I don’t have a strict rule, but this feels like it’s pushing it. I invited two of my best grad school pals over for “Fish Night” on our first day of classes. Here’s what we ate:

Oil-Roasted Sardines with Mayonnaise, Pickled Onions, and Lots of Parsley

*Bonus go-with recipe: Mayo for people who don’t like mayo

Pan-Fried Sardines with Fried and Salted Lemon

Overnight Focaccia, Tonight

Roasted Broccolini

Boiled baby yellow potatoes (they’re great with aioli!)

…and it was a totally fine fish night menu! The win here really was the combination of flavors and textures on the table. Assembling little bites of focaccia-fish-aioli-pickled onion or potato-fish-lemon-broccolini is so satisfying to me because it feels like you get to do an activity while you eat. It’s entertaining to build tiny food towers! 

oil-roasted trout

The oil-roasted fish was nothing to write home about, but with the accoutrements, it didn’t really matter. What made me grumpy is that Alison has you use a whole head of garlic and several sprigs of thyme that never really make their presence known in the fish. She has you cut the garlic head in half lengthwise and put it and the thyme in the pan with the sardines (trout) while they roast, but they only bake for 15-20 minutes. This wasn’t long enough for the garlic to be really roasted (and thus edible as a side), and the garlic and thyme didn’t make enough contact with the oil for it to serve as a useful conduit for the flavors. I wondered why she didn’t have you smash several cloves of garlic and scatter them around the pan, or even give them a head start in the oil in a saucepan before roasting. The skin on my trout also didn’t get very crispy with her method, but that might have been different with sardines.

Now about the mayo: this is aioli. They are the same thing, but if your goal is to make a “mayo for people who don’t like mayo,” you bypass so many obstacles by calling it “aioli.” But whatever you call it, it’s a little tricky! There was a span of a few weeks early in high school when I encountered several recipes for mayo or aioli that came with a disclaimer of “people think this is hard, but my method is foolproof!” (Often said about making mayo in a blender.) Yeah, OK. They were not foolproof. But this mayo went just fine! She has you use two egg yolks, which is more than you need for this amount of oil, but I described it to Annie over the phone as an insurance policy.

Let’s take a detour for a primer on emulsions! Mayo, aioli, creamy salad dressings, and many other sauces are emulsions. This just means it’s a homogeneous mixture of oil and water. In order to get oil and water to combine and not separate, you need an emulsifier (like an egg yolk) to serve as a mediator between oil and water and help them get along. In making mayo, you start with an egg yolk, often with a little mustard and some lemon juice, and very gradually whisk in oil. The first time I made it successfully, I got my station set up, called my friend Amy, and put her on speaker so I could have both hands free for drizzling and whisking. I was so paranoid about going too fast with the oil integration that I paced it out over the course of a whole hour. This time, I called Annie and did it in about 15 minutes. This is growth!

Last thoughts on aioli: it’s tough to gauge seasoning on a condiment. I tasted the aioli on its own a few times and kept wanting more acid and more salt, so I added them, and I’m glad I did. But when I put the aioli in the fridge for a bit while I worked on the other dishes, I wasn’t convinced it was going to have enough spunk. It’s just so unctuous! It’s hard to ever taste it and say, “I want a big spoonful of that in my mouth NOW.” So, if you make aioli, go farther than you think you should on acid and salt, but also bear in mind what it will accompany. The lemon slices and pickled onions did a lot of work here in balancing out the creamy aioli, but if I were serving it with something less zippy, I would want the aioli to be more assertive.

pan-fried trout

For fish on its own, we all preferred the pan-fried fish with fried and salted lemon. I took a bite and said, “This tastes like dessert fish!” I know this sounds weird. But! Alison has you fry lemon slices in some browned butter until the whole thing is deep and caramelly. The skin on the fish gets crackly in the pan-frying. And the other lemon slices are quick-cured in salt and sumac. When you put it all together, you have caramel notes from the brown butter, a salty-acidic pop from the sumac lemons, and crispiness from the fish skin. It could so be a lemon pastry. 

212 and 213 recipes cooked, 12 to go.

Cold Garlicky Pasta with Capers and Salsa Verde by Alison Roman

I used to hate leftover pasta. I hated the way the noodles felt mildly rubbery after I reheated them. I didn’t like how they lost some of their flavor, especially when they had sauce on them and the noodles sort of absorbed the sauce. 

And then I became an adult, responsible for cooking my own meals. Which meant I started loving leftovers — even leftover pasta. Make pasta once, eat it two, maybe three times? Sounds good to me. I typically combine my noodles with sauce before storing them in the fridge, but this recipe might change that. 

I confess I didn’t have any plain leftover pasta on hand, so I cooked TJ’s brown rice spaghetti and rinsed it in cold water and a bit of olive oil to give it that *leftovers* effect. While the pasta boiled, I prepared Another Salsa Verde, which includes finely chopped shallot, finely chopped cilantro, lemon juice, olive oil, salt, and black pepper. I threw in some Aleppo pepper as well for good measure. If you have a sharp knife, there’s truly no need to use a food processor here. The time it takes to finely chop the herbs is the same amount of time it takes to clean and put away the food processor, so why not just use your knife. This “salsa verde,” as I mentioned before when I made Alison’s Turmeric Roasted Lamb, is shockingly delicious for how simple the ingredients are. And though there’s no tomatillo or jalapeño to be found, like a real salsa verde, my first instinct was to dip a tortilla chip in it. Somehow, it just works. 

After the pasta had cooled, I heated the sliced garlic in olive oil, and quickly added chopped capers as well. The goal is not to let the garlic get too toasty, but just a hint of brown. Finally, I placed chopped kale in the skillet to let it barely wilt before pouring the entire mixture over the cold pasta. I used up all the salsa verde I made, topping the pasta and tossing it all together with tongs. A squeeze of lemon juice and sprinkle of flaky salt, and we were set. A smattering of flavors perfectly suited for my palate. 

I will say that this pasta alone wasn’t quite enough to leave Jordan and I feeling full, so we cooked two Italian chicken sausages to go on the side. This dish is a little more involved than a typical leftover meal night, but boy is it worth it. 

208 recipes cooked, 17 to go.

Ricotta-Stuffed Shells with Burrata, Mushrooms, and Herbs & Perfect Herby Salad

I put this recipe off for as long as possible. Not because it didn’t sound good, but because it has more dairy than anyone should eat in a single meal. I’m talking heavy cream, ricotta, parmesan, and mozzarella all filling every imaginable nook and cranny of a 2 quart dish. A delicious stomach ache just begging to happen. 

Well I certainly wasn’t going to eat this one alone. We invited two dear friends over, Elli and Christian, to help us eat it and make it. Why not make the Great Dairy Assembly, as I’m now going to call it, a communal activity? 

Before our friends arrived, I went ahead and started the mushrooms roasting in the oven as well as bringing a pot of salted water to a boil for the pasta. Alison recommends a variety of mushrooms, but I just went for the straightforward pre-sliced baby Bella mushroom cartons at TJ’s. I’ve cooked a lot of her mushroom recipes lately, and I was honestly over spending $7 for 5oz. of little shiitakes. 

I scored some gluten free shells on Amazon, Tinkyada Brown Rice Grand Shells. The packaging says to boil the shells for 15-16 minutes for al dente, so that’s what I did. The edges of the shells were very cooked by that point, but the centers were a little tougher, harder. I definitely didn’t cook them perfectly, but once you’ve poured out the pasta water, it’s hard to go back. Oh well. I did as Alison instructed and poured the newly cooked shells onto an oiled baking sheet to help them cool and not stick together. This mostly worked. 

Now for the Great Dairy Assembly. Elli took each shell and filled it with the Great Dairy Mixture, consisting of ricotta, heavy cream, shaved parmesan, salt and pepper. One by one, she placed them in the baking dish while I desperately tried to arrange them without letting them tip over and spill their filling. Which turned out to be very difficult. Despite the rather al dente state of the pasta, the shells wanted desperately to let the cheese run out. We made a valiant effort to keep them all intact, but it sure was messy. With the shells filled and haphazardly arranged, we stuffed torn pieces of a mozzarella ball into whatever crevices we could find. Next, we poured heavy cream over the dish, followed by the roasted mushrooms. We baked the dish as instructed, about 35 minutes in total. 

Meanwhile, Elli and I prepared the herbs and lemon zest for topping the pasta, as well as Alison’s Perfect Herby Salad. We used lots of parsley, tarragon, and chives. For the salad, I threw in a bag of mixed greens. Alison’s perfect salad dressing is exactly how I dress my salads 90% of the time anyway: olive oil, lemon juice, salt, and pepper. It’s truly all I need to enjoy a salad. 

The shells came out bubbling hot and the mushrooms had turned an even richer brown. We topped them with the fresh herb mixture, and yes, more parmesan. The four of us finished off every shell but one, which wasn’t a Minnesota-nice move, I swear — we were just too full to fathom eating one more shell.

206 and 207 recipes cooked, 18 to go.

Shrimp in the Shells with Lots of Garlic and Probably Too Much Butter by Alison Roman

Of all of Alison’s shrimp recipes, this one was easily my favorite. I’ve never met a combination of sliced garlic, tomato paste, and butter that I didn’t like. Even one covering shrimp. 

And that’s just it, really. I sauteed several garlic cloves and two tablespoons of tomato paste in olive oil, and yes, probably too much butter. Red pepper flakes add a touch of heat as the shelled shrimp hit the skillet. Four minutes later, they were cooked through and ready to eat. I squeezed half a lemon over the steaming shrimp. I stood at the stove and peeled away one of the shells before obediently dragging the shrimp through the hot butter and garlic still sizzling in the pan. It was delightful. I ate several more, and left the rest for Jordan. 

This recipe confirmed two things for me. One, even if a recipe does not call for deveined shrimp, I will still devein them. I have to draw the line somewhere. And two, I sometimes like shrimp. But only when they’re piping hot and doused with other strong flavors. Cold shrimp? Forget it..

205 recipes cooked, 20 to go.

Pizza Night by Alison Roman

Gosh, I love pizza. And this was really good pizza. I saved this recipe for the end of the project, knowing I’d need something to look forward to amidst all the seafood. 

The dough is made using Alison’s Overnight Focaccia, Tonight recipe. I wrote a funky stream-of-consciousness essay about that focaccia here. The dough is proved and ready for baking within about 3 hours of starting the recipe. So, hoping to eat at 6:00pm, I started the dough at 3:00pm. 

While the dough rose, I made Alison’s simple tomato sauce. And I’ll admit, it seemed almost too simple. A few smashed garlic cloves, a can of tomatoes, salt and pepper. I don’t want to make tomato sauce complicated, but would this have enough flavor? The answer is most certainly, yes. She’s not specific about salt amounts, so I used 1 tsp., in keeping with the fairly simple tomato sauce recipe I love from Julia Turshen’s “Small Victories.” The sauce needs only a half hour or so to thicken up a bit and let the garlic infuse the tomatoes. I didn’t have whole peeled tomatoes on hand, just diced. Once the tomatoes were warmed through, I crushed them against the side of the pot with the back of a wooden spoon to achieve a similar texture and consistency. 

I love how simple, yet effective Alison’s topping suggestions are. Little is required to prep them beyond slicing a red onion and tearing up pieces of kale. She leaves all the work for the assembly, which is the most fun part any way. This recipe creates two pizzas, however I wanted to cook them one at a time. Stacking two baking sheets in my oven makes everything take longer and cook more imprecisely. To stagger the pizzas, I separated the dough in two after the second rise and put half in the fridge, covered in saran wrap. I let the first dough prove on a baking sheet, then topped it for baking about 35 minutes later. 

The first pizza was Alison’s Pepperoni Pie, and I followed it to a tee: tomato sauce, mozzarella, pepperoni, red onion, olive oil drizzled over the crust, then sprinkled with flaky salt. The instructions say to bake for 30 to 35 minutes. I removed my pie in 30 minutes, and found that the crust got a little overbaked. It was rather tough to bite into. I course-corrected the second pie and took it out in 27 minutes. The crust was comparatively easier to chew, but still achieved that toasty, golden look. 

While the pepperoni pie baked in the oven, I let the second dough prove on a sheet pan for the other pizza: Lemony Greens Pie. Jordan and I are big “meat on my pizza” people, so I was shocked to hear that both he and one of our dinner guests preferred this pizza over the pepperoni pie. I was worried that this pie wouldn’t have much going for it, flavor-wise, but I was wrong. 

I followed Alison’s topping list again: whole milk ricotta, topped with torn kale massaged in olive oil, grated parmesan, red onion, olive oil drizzled over the crust, then sprinkled with flaky salt. I also added red pepper flakes for a touch of heat. After the pizza came out of the oven, I topped it with parsley and lemon juice, plus a few finely chopped anchovies. The kale comes out partially crisped, and the parmesan becomes sort of crunchy and golden. Lemon juice really unites the ingredients and makes them taste brighter. 

I served the pizzas with Alison’s Crushed Peas and Burrata Salad (a great combo!), and her Coconut Banana Cream Pudding (post to come). 

This recipe has inspired me to get more creative and adventurous with my pizzas. Homemade pizza using store-bought dough is a common meal in our home, and I tend to use the same topping combinations each time. I’m excited to start using more variations per Alison’s list of toppings and improvise with what I have on hand. For example, I recently purchased a bag of nutritional yeast that I should try sprinkling on top of my next pizza. I doubt I’ll make her dough many more times, as I don’t love the way the crust turned out more crunchy than chewy. I think the Whole Foods brand of pizza dough cooks perfectly and takes far less effort. But that dough, topped with Alison’s topping combos? Now that’s a pizza night I look forward to.  

203 recipes cooked, 22 to go.