Sardines at Sea

What a fun name for this vegan dish!  As Faith Willinger relates in her 1996 Red White & Greens, the sardines do remain at sea as they are never caught and brought to shore.  Rather, fennel greens and various other vegetables, fruits, and nuts are used instead to make for this very traditional and tasty rural Sicilian pasta sauce characteristic of  “cucina povera”, or poverty cuisine, in which excellent food was made from the most simple and inexpensive of ingredients. Often these were harvested free from the surrounding landscape as is the case with the fennel greens which grow wild throughout the Mediterranean.  . 

6 quarts water
2 tablespoons sea salt
½ pound fennel greens, tough stalks removed
1 large onion, chopped
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
2 cups tomato, peeled, seeded and chopped
¼ cup pine nuts
¼ cup small raisins
1/8 teaspoon freshly grated nutmeg
1/8 teaspoon saffron, crushed and dissolved in 2 tablespoons of hot water
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste

Add salt to the water and bring to a rolling boil.  Add in the fennel greens and cook until tender, about 6-8 minutes.  Drain fennel, reserving the cooking water.  Refresh fennel under cold water, drain, and coarsely chop. 

Heat olive oil over medium heat in a large pan.  Saute onion for about 10 minutes until soft.  Add in the tomato, pine nuts, raisins, nutmeg, and chopped fennel leaves.  Cook over medium-low heat until the sauce thickens, about 15-20 minutes. 

Add in saffron and its soaking water along with ½ cup of the water used to cook the fennel leaves.  Cook sauce over medium-high heat for 3-5 minutes until it thickens.  If the sauce becomes too thick, add more of the fennel water.   Adjust seasonings with salt and pepper. 

Serve over linguini, spaghetti or some other long but narrow pasta which has been cooked in the fennel water.  Garnish with freshly shaved parmesan cheese.

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