Since I started following the AIS sommelier course in Amsterdam my Monday evenings are sooo much nicer because there's always someone - one of my fellow students or moi - who organises some nice event: a dinner, a wine tasting or, like last Monday, a BBQ in a beautiful Amsterdam garden.
Iris invited us for a wonderful evening of eating good food, drinking excellent wines and being merry.
Victor was Master of The BBQ for the whole evening producing wonderfully juicy meat, Giovanni made grilled sardines (since I was too busy drinking wine I didn't actually see how he made them so I'll give you my own personal recipe) and we all brought a bunch of GREAT bottles of wine to taste (doing a sommelier course you always have a great excuse to drink, haven't you?)
Thank you Iris! And yes, the Boomtown Rats were wrong.
Oh gawd, I'm dating myself. :)
Serves 4 4 big sardines p.p.
A handful of garlic cloves
A small bunch of parsley
2 lemons
1-2 fresh red chilli peppers
Olive oil extra vergine
Salt and black pepper
Remove the heads of the sardines (if you do that with a movement from up to down as if you wanted to make them "nod" the guts will come off with the heads; at the same time, open the bellies with your thumb to make this easier).
Rinse the fish under cold tap water and marinate for half an hour with lemon juice, abundant olive oil, the finely chopped peppers and some peeled and sliced garlic cloves.
Fill the bellies with some parsley leaves and one garlic clove, remove the excess marinade and grill until nicely cooked.
If you want to protect the delicate meat of the smaller sardines (like the ones in the picture) put some tin foil between them and the grill.
Season with salt and pepper and serve hot.
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