Baked sardines, Sardinia-style is a typical Sardinian recipe. It's tasty and ideal for everyone who likes fish included kids as sardine fillets are used.
It's a quick recipe if you buy fillets but you need more time if you buy whole fish.
Its ingredients are: sardines, ripe tomatoes, basil, parsley, garlic and olive oil
Here's the recipe as Carlo and I make at our home.

Fillet the sardines. Pull out their stomach content, scale and bone them.
Wash them quickly under cold running water. Pat dry the fillets with kitchen paper. Put them aside.

Prepare the tomato sauce. Clean, wash and chop the parsley, garlic and basil. Squeeze the lemon.
Peel the tomatoes, remove their seeds and chop their flesh.
Preheat the oven to 190°C (374°F).
In a bowl put the olive oil, lemon juice, chopped herbs and tomatoes. Season to taste with salt and stir.

Prepare the baking pan and cook. Line a baking pan with oven paper. Arrange the sardine fillets in a single layer. Spoon the tomato sauce on the top and bake for about half an hour.
If you see any cooking juice left in the last minutes, increase the temperature and bake for other 5 minutes.

Serve at once.

Note

• - For a quicker recipe: buy sardine fillets, use canned chopped tomatoes and dried parsley and basil.
• - If you don't want to chop the garlic you can prepare the tomato sauce in advance adding the garlic clove whole. Stir very well and put apart in a cool place. Remove the garlic before the use.
  We don't like garlic and substitute it with a tablespoon dried or fresh chives.
• - The correct dose of sardine fillets is: 320 to 350 g (11 1/4 to 12 1/4 oz).
• - Prepare the baked sardines for your family ad dinner.

Healthy eating

• - Look at the nutrition facts of baked sardines. The situation is normal except for protein that are high. According to the principles of modern nutrition you should eat protein (meat or fish or eggs or cheese) at dinner. In fact we have just suggested to prepare this dish for dinner. To compensate such high protein amount prepare a vegetarian pasta at lunch and complete your lunch with raw vegetables and fruit.
• - According to the traditional recipe the right amount of olive oil was to be 5 tablespoons. We generally reduce it to a tablespoon as you can read. We think it is the right amount.
  Think of it. Every tablespoon olive oil (10 ml - 1/2 fl oz ) means 90 kCal and 10 g (1/2 oz) fat. Now calculate how much calories and fat would increase with 5 tablespoons olive oil instead of 1 tablespoon. We can no longer eat as we were used to do in the past. Nowadays we need less calories than in the past. We have heated homes. We move less. We are more procted by the clothes. We need less calories, really.
  Another detail that confirms the difference between the way of eating in the past and nowadays is the amount of fish. In Italy nutritionists suggest the right amount of cleaned fish is 100 g per head. In other words you should buy 150 g (5 1/4 oz) fresh sardines to have, once cleaned, 100 g (3 1/2 oz) fish to be eaten. Everyone should decide what to do. To buy only 300 g (10 1/2 oz) fresh sardines and modify the amount of the other ingredients proportionally or to make the recipe as we have presented and compensate the other meals in the day for protein amount.

What's the right wine for " Baked sardines, Sardinia-style " ?

Wine can't be suggested for the presence of lemon juice. Match a beer with baked sardines.