Description
Ingredients: Sardines (Sardina pilchardus) 65%, water, alcohol vinegar, sunflower oil, onions, tomato concentrate, spices and aromatic plants, salt, thickener: guar gum.
Ferrigno La Bonne Mer Sardines à l’escabèche (Sardines in Escabeche)
$7.00
Sardines in Escabeche, which is sometimes translated as “pickle sauce” or “marinade”, both of which it is, but it is also much more. It’s oil, vinegar, herbs and spices, so it’s a vinaigrette. We often see mussels in escabeche, but only occasionally do we see vinegar sauces with sardines–that’s because they soften the flesh more than just oil. Some people love that, some people don’t. We do.
115g (4 oz) tin
In stock
Reviews
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Greg L (verified owner) –
It’s not often that a tin turns it up to 11. This tin does just that. I’m a big fan of the entire Ferrigno line of artwork tins. I’ve tried perhaps 10 of them or so and this is far and away my favorite. The marinade is incredibly flavorful. Punchy vinegar, herbaceous, and a nice bit of spice excellently seasoning the fish. The sardines were sized consistently with other Ferrigno tins (medium-ish). They were a bit beat up in the tin, but I’ve come to expect that when the sardines aren’t simply packed in oil. Their texture was on the softer side, but not soft like Matiz sardines, for example. The sardines were moist and their flavor was perfectly complimented by the marinade. For me, it just doesn’t get better than this. Highly recommended. I’ll be keeping these around for sure.
Hream McDan (verified owner) –
I wanted to love this one so much. I love Ferrigno artwork tins and now even gave it 2 tries, but it’s just ok. Texturally, these came across to me as very dry and very firm. I was expecting the *exact opposite* texture in fact, thinking that the vinegar presence would result in softened sardines. Also, the escabeche -while delicious- really didn’t bring any tang to the party. When I ate these in a side-by-side comparison with Sardinha’s sardines in escabeche, the different in sauce was quite dramatic. Sardinha had much more of an escabeche acidity/tang while Ferrigno essentially read as a light tomato sauce with above average flavor depth. This tin is a 3.25 star tin for me after trying it again.
Previous tasting notes … I intended to have the liver sausage Ferrigno, grabbed it, realized it was something else (not remembering what it was), ate it. Wasn’t until after I finished that I re-read the back and noticed it was escabeche. I did eat it on a cracker + a spoon to get the good stuff. I’m … I’m not sure. It was fine. It was a 3.5 eaten this way but mostly, it read like a tomato sauce. I wasn’t blown away. Perhaps I’ll get it again, try to emulsify, eat with a potato chip or something. I could see this being really great with the mussels but for sardines -and especially not realizing what I was eating- it was just good. Felt like I didn’t give it a fair shake.
TLDR; It’s fine, just fine but it fell short when compared to the comparable Sardinha tin. I’d suggest buying Sardinha sardines in escabeche instead.
ZA (verified owner) –
I really enjoyed these! They were my first time trying escabeche after hearing about it all the time, and I’d say it’s worth it. I was expecting just oil and vinegar, so I was pleasantly surprised by everything else in the tin–basically a tomato sauce with some small pieces of onion. It seems like Ferrigno keeps surprising me like that; where I expect a chunky sauce it’s smooth, and vice versa. Anyway, it was a very good sauce, very savory with a nice bright acidic flavor and not sweet at all, which is a perfect tomato sauce for me.
To be honest, I had these several days ago, and so I don’t entirely remember the texture of the sardines, except to say that they were fairly comparable to other Ferrigno tins: so on the firm side.
I really like the art on this tin, especially the shiny foil bit on the fish and bucket. “Scène de torture à la provençale” translates exactly how you might guess it does, which I found rather amusing.
Riley Mitchell (verified owner) –
Overall it was a good can, the flavor is good, texture of the fish is different than your standard can of deens in oil, but that should be expected with a vinegar based sauce. Is this my favorite can from Ferrigno? Not really, but the tin artwork is cool and it was a good can, I’d say 7/10 overall.
fishday (verified owner) –
One of the ONLY tins my wife will share with me. She is 30% in on my tinned fish hobby but was 100% in on these. This was my second Ferrigno tin, the first being the chorizo one. I love the demented art and the fish is excellent. Maybe this tin will win over a nonbeliever in your life.
twa101 (verified owner) –
Another fun and goofy tin from Ferrigno, this one with a bit of iridescence. This one had a very mild and clean smell, just a hint of vinegar and spices. There was one huge fish and three large ones all with beautiful, bright skin and no scales. These were very well flavored from the sauce, hint of vinegar and whatever ‘spices and aromatic plants’ they are using. The texture was firm and dry, most likely from the vinegar, more like tuna than sardines. These chonkers had very large bones, but were not noticeable when eating, and the fragility of the fish & spines would make them hard to remove. Overall, this was a good experience, especially the flavor. It might be even better to make your own escabeche sauce with the oil from a regular tin of sardines. Heat the sauce up and pour over the sardines after they’ve been split in half for a quick pickle, perhaps overnight in a fridge and then brought back to room temperature for eating.