u/DreweyD

I only rarely reach for skinless/boneless at the stores, but a small local shop added this Nuri mackerel to its shelves, and I felt compelled to reward that behavior. Not sure I had ever even cracked the lid on this particular product before. Pretty glad I did—this is top-quality work from the good people at Pinhais.

Very tender, very mild. Probably the last ten cans of plain, skinless-n-boneless mackerel I’ve had over the years have been either King Oscar or UK grocery store brands canned at the same big plant in Scotland. This Nuri fish was definitely a large step up from the kind of hockey puck texture and bland flavor of those other mackerels I’ve kept on hand. Plus the olive oil is actually good.

French maker La Perle des Dieux—“the Pearl of the Gods”—is one of the best, and this tin with grilled small pilchard sardines joined in their extra virgin olive oil bath by coriander seeds and black, white, pink, and green peppercorns, is one of me favorites.

Together those spices are the five berries, the “cinq baies,” promised on the label. Eyeballing the tally, it appeared to me to be several dozen peppercorns and coriander seeds in the can, and they’ve definitely done good work, contributing a nice peppery punch.

There isn’t much of a grilled flavor. I think, instead, that grilling these little guys, rather than steaming them or taking some other first-cooking route, carries these sardines farther down towards the firm-fleshed end of the spectrum. They may look similar to brisling sprats in stature, but they’re not brisling-soft in texture. I prefer that, and I wish more sardines were given time on the grill.

I reached for this can in the pantry this morning, because over the weekend I’d cooked up a mix of Kabuli and Bengali chickpeas. In my memory, the fish had taken on a similar coloring from their long pepper bath, and I think the match is pretty close. These little swimmers could hide themselves in a mottled chana reef, I think.

The jalapeño version of Saint Lucifer’s table spice is twice as nice as their standard version. At least it makes for a great match with canned fish. Good stuff and whatever heat there is—it’s not fierce—is so easily controllable by lightness of touch in the sprinkling.