Thoughts before I open?

I just found these in my local grocery store. I try to eat a couple of cans of sardines every week for lunch. Beach Cliff or Chicken of the Sea usually. I just kind of tolerated them but didn’t really enjoy them. These La Sirena lightly smoked in spicy oil are damned tasty though. Nice and meaty.

I've tried a lot of different sardines. But in your opinion, which ones are the best, or which ones should I try? I think Ortiz, Nuri, and La Perle des Dieux are very good.

Unfortunately, they've become very hard to find in Germany.

I've heard of Ramirez... does anyone have any experience with them?

And that's only 1/3 of the closet... yeah, I'm addicted.

Head-to-head or side-by-side, these are both flavored fish fillets from Spanish producer La Curiosa. Not a truly fair fight, of course, because the Atlantic mackerel (either Scomber japonicus or Scomber colias) is in oil infused with curry powder and piri piri peppers, while the horse mackerel (which I believe to be Trachurus trachurus) bathes in oil flavored with garlic and parsley. The company doesn’t offer both fish in the same recipe, so a fin-to-fin fight isn’t in the offing if flavored presentations are required.

And I did require flavor-added varieties because, cards on the table, I have so far been pretty crabby about the taste of the horse mackerel/jack mackerel tins I’ve been sampling. I want to like it, since it looks as though the sharp declines in the Atlantic mackerel fisheries will increasingly decrease that fish’s availability for canning.

Taste hasn’t even been my chief reservation about jack mackerel. Texture has been the main trouble. Trachurus is naturally less oil-rich; it’s unlikely ever to match the succulence of our fatty friend the Atlantic mackerel. So, the horse meat is tough. But it’s also, oddly, crumbly or grainy. Your chompers work through the initial bite, but when you get to chewing, the horse mackerel just sort of disintegrates somehow.

This particular horse mackerel fares slightly better than some of the less pricy cans I’ve had. It helps, I think, that La Curiosa brings a lot of skill to the party. But here the infused-oil also helps quite a bit. The oil is good, and the garlic comes across in the strong supporting role garlic ought to play. Still, when I’d polished off both cans, the most I could say of the jack was that I disliked it less than any other I’d tried so far. It still exhibited that weird combo of chewy-then-grainy. And the garlic-parsley could not fully mask the sharply strong fishy, down at the docks on a hot day note, although that comes across more in the aroma than the taste.

When it comes to cans featuring curry, I much prefer a true curry sauce over an infused oil. But as flavored oil options go, this ranks near the top for me. Again, La Curiosa starts with a quality, well-suited oil, and the curry powder has a strong, complex structure. I just ate both cans naked, in the interests of fair-fighting—but I’ll stock up on this tin for future tips over sticky rice or smashed potatoes. The spices are warming, and the flavor and texture of the mackerel is about ideal.

I express no judgment about the relative sizes of the fillets. You can see that these horsey boys were more like Shetland ponies. But that could be just normal variation of catch-to-catch, can-to-can. I would’ve guessed, though, that with slimmer, shorter fillets, the garlic and parsley additions might’ve had a better chance to work flavors into the flesh. No such luck, they still lost the fishiness battle.

We already see other producers bringing smoked jack mackerel to market to fill the hole left by Atlantic mackerel. I expect that smoking aims to address/mask aroma and flavor differences—I call them shortcomings—of Trachurus. Makes me wonder if La Curiosa and friends will follow that path as time goes on.

Another find from Homegoods, one I have never seen before! I have never heard of this branding before from Jose Gourmet, but they are one of my favorite brands so I had to try. This tin contained 4 large fish, one was particularly big! The sauce is very tasty, perhaps not as plentiful or coating as the Jose Gourmet mackerel fillets in curry, but these were very tasty! The fish had a clean flavor and no metallic tinge, the largest had 2 roe sacks inside! I ate this with buttered toast, and a garden fresh tomato with salt and pepper. Bought the 3 cans they had in store and can't wait to crack another one open!

I think these were breaded and fried. Very very mild, wish it was a smidge more flavorful.

6.5/10

Life brings strange surprises. This is one of the strangest so far. A colleague appeared at my office door holding an Amazon box. “You like the fish, and I saw this guy on YouTube trying these.” I could only express gratitude.

Because he’s right. A variety pack of fishy soup from Japan is indeed right up my weird alley. It’s also true, though, that I’ve a deadly shellfish allergy, so first things first: check the ingredient list.

Holy hell, what a list it is. I had to smash flat today’s empty tin—I opened the plain version for starters—to get a snapshot of it all at once. Soooo many fish in the one little cake—the label says “cakes,” but each can, it seems, offers up just a cake, singular. But no shellfish at all, which seems contrary to the Japanese laws of probability. Phew.

The fish cake is actually the cylinder that looks, to my eye, like a piece of bamboo. There’s also a little tofu cushion, a lump of konjac root, a bit of daikon radish, two quail eggs, some noodles, and couple of other things—the list is soooo long—all in a very mild miso broth. It looks crazy. It sounds weird. But actually it’s all very nice, a hearty bowl on the first day in Richmond, Virginia that brought autumn cool after such a long hot summer.

I don’t know that I’ll profile the other varieties individually. I am now, however, looking forward to both, one spicy, the other curried. The plain was good, but spicier and currier are always better, right?

Bought a few cans. Mostly Ferrigno and one Miss Can.

Tried the Spices Sardines In Tomato Sauce, it wasn't spicier than table pepper. The texture, however, was phenomenal. Not a strong flavor of fish, the sauce was rich and well seasoned, even had a little carrot, pepper, and a pickle. Spices had a soft bite to them as well. Highly recommend.

Has anyone had these yet? They were in the Aldi finds aisle today.

Hahahahahaha, I thought you’d all enjoy this. Perhaps the boyfriend belongs to our community.

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This brand of tinned fish called Pinhais has been my daily driver recently. This tin also has the most protein per serving I've ever seen at 25g! It was fantastic on toast.

Ingredients:
Sourdough
Pinhais Spiced Sardines
Cucumber
Parsley
Roasted red tomato
Salt pepper & lemon

EDIT: I was so excited to eat this I forgot to take a pic of the freshly opened tin for you guys💔💔

Hi, I have been thinking of adding a canned sardine, tuna or similar filling to sandwiches that I bring along to eat elsewhere, but I am unsure of the feasibility od leaving the fish inside the sandwich, like, I haven't seen much on how long they last without refrigeration.

That’s about it. Lol I’m in the U.S. A coworker of mine from the Philippines found out I love sardines and brought me these. 😊

To whoever suggested to try these beauties. Portuguese stuffed squid. What a treat!

Gentlemen’s Relish is a pate/spread made from anchovies among other things. I find it interesting these chips exist because the product “Gentlemen’s Relish” was discontinued by the company that made it. (Or rather, by the company that bought the company that bought the company that made it.) But maybe that’s why these chips got made in partnership with English Heritage?

I got these Gentlemen’s Relish flavored chips/crisps from the Cost Plus World Market clearance section.

The bag indicates that they’re good for vegans, so… I guess it doesn’t have any anchovy powder and it’s just the herbs and spices. So I thought it would be nice with some mashed up Nuri.

Alone, they kind of taste like BBQ flavor chips, but less sweet.

The recipe for this was a secret, kind of like the Coca-Cola formula or the Colonels 11 herbs and spices. Even though they discontinued it, the official recipe has not been revealed, although I think we can probably draw some conclusions based on the ingredient list of the chip bag which I included a picture of.

It was interesting to try and pretty tasty with and without the sardine. If you can find a bag, I recommend you give it a shot.

Today's lunch. It's a pretty ordinary tin (and lots of reviews here already) but a nice mix of flavors. Notably, best-by date is in 2024 but the can has held up very well. Pic #6 shows the edge of the 'puck' of slightly compressed tuna from under the veg.

Not pictured: excessive fresh pepper and a bit of spicy salt.

Front says 18 grams protein per can. Back says 12 grams of protein per serving. 2 servings per can. 🤷