Pickled fresh sardines and pomegranate, tomato & lemon gelatina

garish with (fried) rice noodle, fresh parsley, pomegranate arils and gelatina cut-ups

Originally I planned this space for Seasoned Eatings, hosted by Lindsay and Katie, to spice up the wonderful holiday. However, I haven't received the package so far, and I am going to leave for Amsterdam tomorrow for a short vacation, right now please let me introduce this appetiser instead. In the meantime, wish all my dearest friends have a wonderful holiday's season! And a very prosperous new year!

Left: Lemon gelatina Right: bottom - pomegranate & tomato gelatina; top - pine nut & garlic mayo

pickled fresh sardines in olive oil and herbs

For pickling fish, I have sent a similar recipe to Chris, please head over her Seasoned Eatings' post and drool over her fantastic sandwich. You can use anchovy, but I found sardines super-fresh at market yesterday, so I used them instead.

Recipe of pickling fresh sardines (yield: 4 persons as appetiser)

• 8 sardines, preferable smaller size
• 500 ml white vinegar, or depending the size of the container you use
• 3 cloves of garlic, thinly sliced
• 2 bunches of fresh parsley, diced
• black pepper
• some very cold water
• olive oil
• coarse sea salt

How-to

• clean the fish, cut off the head and tail. You may like to take out the main bone, but I didn't. Soak them in very cold water for 15 minutes. Pat dry.
• Arrange them in a plastic contain, cover with wine vinegar, garlic, parsley and pepper. Cover. Marinate in fridge overnight.
• Discard the vinegar, pat dry, carefully arrange them in a wider contain so that they won't overlap. Sprinkle coarse sea salt, cover with olive oil. Keep them in fridge until you ready to serve.

For making gelatina, I used agar-agar because I'm more familiar with it. However I eyeballed everything and couldn't tell you the exact measurement. Mainly, I slowly cooked the agar-agar in little water until it totally dissolved, mixed with juice from pomegranate and tomato. Adjusted the sweetness by adding sugar. Pour in a container and chill. Cut up your preferably size and arrange on the serving plate. Repeat the same procedure for the lemon gelatina.

For making the nutty cream, finely ground a small handful of pine nuts and a clove of garlic, mix with mayo.

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