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Grilled Sardines
Lift the sardines carefully from the box, place them on a greased broiler, and broil quickly over a clear, moderate fire. Have ready toasted strips of bread, place one sardine on each strip, spread with butter, garnish the plate with cress. Serve immediately, with quarters of lemon.
A canned-fish supper dish that survives almost unchanged; the only real work is keeping the fillets intact and getting them hot without drying them out.
- "From the box" means the tinSardines of this period were generally packed in oil in a flat tin. Drain them well and blot on paper towel — surface oil is what makes them spit and flare under a broiler.
- Handle them onceSardines break apart the moment they warm. Lift each fish out with a palette knife or two forks, lay them on the greased rack in a single layer, and do not turn them; two to three minutes under high heat is enough since the fish is already cooked.
- A "clear, moderate fire"The original assumes a coal or wood fire burned down past the smoky stage. A modern broiler on high with the rack about four inches below the element gives the same effect, as does a very hot ridged grill pan.
- Greased broilerThe period broiler was typically a wire rack or hinged double rack held over the coals, hence the greasing. Line a sheet pan with oiled foil instead, or the fillets will weld to the bars.
- The butter goes on the toastThe butter -- The text is ambiguous as to whether the butter goes on the toast or over the fish. Buttering the toast strips while hot, so the butter soaks in, gives a buttered base under an oily fish.
- CressProbably watercress, though "cress" could also mean garden cress; both were common peppery garnishes that were eaten as well as looked at. Watercress, garden cress or young arugula all work.
- QuantityThe recipe gives none. Reckon two or three sardines per person as a light lunch or savoury course; a small modern tin holds roughly four to six fish.
- SaltTinned sardines are salted in packing. Taste before adding any, and let the lemon do most of the seasoning work.
Sardines in oil were one of the first commercially canned foods to become genuinely cheap, and by the 1880s a tin was a familiar pantry item in American and British households — reliable, shelf-stable, and requiring no cooking at all. That is exactly why the dish is so convenient: the fire is needed only for a moment, there is no stock, no sauce and no roasting, and the whole thing goes together faster than the range takes to heat. The name "sardine" is generally traced to Sardinia, off whose coast the small pilchards were once fished in quantity. Serving a hot savoury on a strip of toast, garnished with cress and lemon, is the standard late-Victorian formula for the small course that ended dinner or stood in for a light supper.