Description
Ingredients: Sardines 75%, extra virgin olive oil* 25%, salt.
*25% of agricultural products are from organic farming.
Albert Ménès Boneless Sardines in Organic Extra Virgin Olive Oil
$15.50
These organic sardines, caught in the Atlantic Ocean, are carefully selected and prepared traditionally using the freshest fish. They are gutted and the heads are removed by hand. They are then cleaned before being dried on a grill. After deep-frying and then draining to remove excess fat, the tails are cut off by hand before specialist workers remove the bones with a skillful manoeuvre. Finally, they are delicately placed in their tin and covered with extra virgin olive oil, which enriches their flavour and ensures the best preservation..
115g (4 oz) tin
Pictured with their own oil, pickled perl onions, and guindillas.
In stock
Reviews
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Michael Greenberg (verified owner) –
Four absolute honkers in beautiful, golden oil. They’re big, they’re boneless, they’re beautiful. It’s particularly surprising how nice they look considering how much these fragile fish have been handled: drying, deep frying, deboning via “skillful manoeuvre”. (Drop the video, Albert!)
The oil is good quality and well flavored with the fish. I surely opened mine prematurely—it came free with my order (thank you, Dan!) and I was too curious to resist. As the package says, “plus celui-ci [le confisage] sera long, meilleures seront les sardines”. Eaten at this stage, the fish is meaty and thick, with a nice robust flavor. A few bites by the belly had a whiff of a livery/guts flavor, but it wasn’t unpleasant—just intense. The texture was a tiny bit chalky in a few places… I suspect aging/”confisage” process would even that out a bit.
The size, oil quality, and handling (for a boneless sardine!) are the real distinction here—if boneless sardines are your bag, this is definitely a tin to keep and age.
I had mine pretty straight up, but any application that features the oil will be really delicious: a salad (with the oil in the dressing); a pasta (with the oil in the sauce); a sandwich (with the oil drizzled on the bread).
Peter Kupchick (verified owner) –
This was our third tin of the night and it followed some spiced sardines so that may have detracted from how great these were. Served these on slices of focaccia with crème fraiche, pickled onions, sliced cherry tomatoes, lemon, and fresh cracked pepper. This is now my favorite way to dress up sardines. They were big and tender, but definitely misses the spice notes from the previous tin. Could have added some crushed red pepper etc tho! Lovely product.