Chili Crisp Sardine Rice!!!

One-pot dinner alert

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I’ve enjoyed tinned fish ever since I rode the slick back of an anchovy down the slippery slope of “not really a vegetarian anymore,” but it took me a while to really warm to sardines. This comes, in part, from an intense childhood sense memory. Growing up (bear with me here), my family performed in a stage magic show every Sunday, during which we would disappear, reappear, levitate, sing, dance, smile, etc. Much of our time during the show was necessarily spent backstage: changing costumes, sitting around, snacking before our next appearance. I spent most of my backstage time in the women’s dressing room, a sacred space full of costumes and the leotard-clad women who had sewn them, where Marlow and I would draw faces on styrofoam wig forms with drug store lipstick and pierce their eyes with glass-head sewing pins.

Almost directly below the women’s dressing room was another even smaller room where Cesareo, the director of the magic company and my de facto godfather, got dressed. I often hung out here, too, and would as a result inhale a strange combination of scents wafting up from the two grocery items that Cesareo kept stocked for mid-show sustenance: V8 and sardines. I have never inquired as to how he ate the sardines: with a fork? On a hidden stash of crackers I never found? Certainly not atop a jaunty little salad, he wasn’t that kind of guy. But I know he ate them during the show, and washed them down with V8 (low sodium), and I can tell you that the combined smell, even in memory form—fishy and funky and too-sweet and vegetal, like the inklings of a compost heap—still makes my stomach lurch.

Not to sound ageist or anything, but this foisted sardines into the gross old man food category in my brain. It took some coaxing, then, to welcome them into my adult kitchen. The Captain’s Daughter, a sandwich at my beloved Saltie (RIP), nudged the door open: a tin of sardines layered into a fat slice of focaccia with slices of pickled egg and some zingy salsa verde, you couldn’t argue with it. (Caroline Fidanza could get me to eat a shoe and then write a 2,000-word newsletter about its genius.) In the past years I’ve welcomed sardines into my pasta, onto my toast. A few years ago, I introduced them to the rice cooker.

Fran, I think, was the person who turned me on to sardine rice, a recipe that comes from Yukari Elliott by way of Cookbuzz. It’s pretty simple: tinned sardines, mirin and soy sauce, rice and butter and ginger, all steamed together in the rice cooker, plus some scallions to finish. A solid pantry meal, the sort of dish that’s ideal for tinkering with or adapting to what you’ve got. I’ve messed with it a bit over the years, to varying levels of success, but always wanted to solidify my ideal version of the recipe, and I finally have. My main addition is a healthy scoop of chili crisp, which adds a bit of depth and spice to every bite. There’s also a kicky scallion salad garnish, which admittedly rips off Julia Turshen’s kimchi fried rice.

don’t skimp on the garnish !!

The result is the perfect set-it-and-forget-it meal, which you can mix together the second you get home from work and have ready in as long as it takes your rice cooker to steam rice—for me, that’s about 40 minutes. (Yes, you can do it on the stove, too; it’s even faster that way, but requires more monitoring.) Leftovers make an ideal next-day lunch, whether you eat them plain at room temperature or take three minutes to turn them into fried rice (which I highly recommend).

The quality of your sardines will, unfortunately, make a difference here. That doesn’t mean you need to buy the fanciest ones, but the cheapest ones at the grocery store won’t be as wonderful, and will occasionally be gross. I’ve recently used (and photographed) the wild caught boneless skinless sardines in olive oil from Trader Joe’s, which are delicious and $3, but I also like Nuri and Matiz if you’re looking for something a little nicer. This recipe would also be great with oil-packed mackerel (or this, yum). I tried it with some fancy salmon last week, and it was delicious but I do think oil-packed fish fare better here, because they’re less likely to dry out. And if you’re in the market for more tinned fish recipes, make sure to preorder Anna Hezel’s new book TIN TO TABLE, which I can’t wait to get my grubby little hands on. (This is not an ad but it certainly COULD be!!)

Check out the recipe (& a printable PDF!) below.

chili crisp sardine rice