Hot-Fish Spicy Sardine Empanadas – savory Latin-style pastries, perfect as finger food for 4 people. Preparation time: 15 minutes, baking time: 30 minutes, total time: 45 minutes.

By now, we deal with sardines every day, and with great pleasure. Perhaps you do too? As an uncomplicated and versatile everyday delicacy, we highly value these little silver wonders. Although they naturally also shine as purists, so much can be done with them! We have already tried some recipes and presented them here. But what about the sardine's little sister, the anchovy? Does our imagination go beyond a self-topped anchovy pizza? Mais bien sûr! So let's go – and that is, freely according to the motto "Butter bei die Fische"! To keep it simple, I have selected a recipe that is done in no time and for which you don't even need many ingredients: homemade anchovy butter. Out of sardinophilic interest and driven by culinary curiosity, I decided to make an anchovy butter to go with it. Let's see which tastes better! Or should sardines and anchovies perhaps be compared as little as apples and pears after all?! … Numéro 1: the anchovy butter Ingredients: 1 small can of anchovies (approx. 50g) 150g soft salted raw milk butter 1 shallot, finely chopped parsley, chopped 1 pinch of Piment d'Espelette Put all ingredients in the blender at once or blend with the immersion blender until everything is well mixed. Put the finished butter in a bowl and place it in the refrigerator to cool or put the butter in a piece of wax paper and shape it into a roll of approx. 5 centimeters, which now goes into the refrigerator or even the freezer. Numéro 2: the sardine butter Ingredients: 1 can of boneless sardines in olive oil with lemon, e.g. from La Belle-Iloise 100g salted raw milk butter 2 pinches of seaweed Let the butter soften at room temperature. Meanwhile, drain the sardines and crush them with a fork, then knead the crushed sardines, the seaweed and the soft butter together with the fork until all ingredients are well combined.Put the finished butter in a small bowl and refrigerate. The verdict: Both butter variants taste excellent and very different, and the salted raw milk butter brings out the characteristic taste of both very distinctive fish perfectly: The anchovy butter has a very smooth-creamy consistency due to blending and can be spread easily. Its taste is intense: richly salty, pleasantly fishy and slightly spicy due to the Piment d'Espelette. The parsley and shallot balance out the aromatic anchovy nicely and give the recipe a fruity note. Crushing with the fork gives the sardine butter an equally very pleasant fine fibrous structure, reminiscent of rillettes. The candied lemon gives the recipe a pleasant and highly interesting freshness. The recipe clearly impresses with its simplicity and the concentration on the fish. Additional ingredients like parsley or onions would have only watered down the taste. We recommend enjoying the sardine and anchovy butter with crackers or on toasted bread, or also with warm potatoes and a green salad. In any case, it should be a simple meal where the fish butter can play the main role. This goes well with a full-bodied but not too heavy red wine, such as the Brouilly 2015 Georges Descombes. The bouquet is delicate and pure with aromas of plums and raspberries, complemented by flinty notes. The special freshness and fruit enchant you instantly! In the mouth, juicy aromas of ripe fruit unfold. - - The recipe for the anchovy butter is by Barbara-jo McIntosh, that of the sardine butter by Sonia Ezgulan. I have slightly modified both according to my own judgment and taste. Above all, the butter-fish ratio can be varied and you also don't have to take sardines with lemon. Try out what tastes good to you and share your best variations with us. Write us an email!

We love soups! But what if it's too warm for stew, the pumpkin season is over, or the kids no longer want to eat barley? The best solution comes from Spain: in the form of gazpacho! This cold soup tastes wonderfully fresh, and it can also be varied in many delicious ways. We were also craving something red this week... and because the first strawberries are so beautiful right now, our head chef Thomas has created a wonderful strawberry gazpacho for us this week. We are absolutely thrilled and wouldn't mind at all if this fruit bomb were on our table every day!

This simple recipe will appeal to anyone who isn't afraid of rich combinations: true to the motto "mixing is possible", we have tried our hand at a tapenade with three kinds of fish – sardine, anchovy and tuna. A delicious combination full of Mediterranean aromas that transports us to the south even in the darkest winter ... perhaps on board a small sailboat rocking in the harbour, or on a terrace in lavender-covered hills, while the crickets chirp all around us, the sun shines down on our heads and we enjoy a little aperitif with friends ... Ingredients for 6 - 8 servings 1 can of sardines (e.g. Sardinettes) in water, drained 1 small can of anchovies (approx. 56g), drained and soaked in milk for 10 - 15 minutes to desalt them 1 can of tuna in water, drained 1 clove of garlic, roughly chopped 1 small shallot, roughly chopped 1 handful of black olives, pitted freshly ground pepper 1 tsp mustard 1 tbsp olive oil 2 tbsp dry sherry rosemary Crush all the ingredients with a hand blender, a fork or in a mortar until a coarse paste is formed. It is best not to blend it too finely, as it looks better and the texture is also nicer if a few pieces of fish and olive remain. Serve in a nice bowl, accompanied by crackers, raw vegetables or toasted bread. Also very delicious on homemade bruschetta, with grilled vegetables or as a filling for tomatoes, peppers, zucchini, eggplant ... Best enjoyed with a full-bodied red wine – Bon appétit! Garlic and rosemary give the recipe a spicy, southern note, while the dry sherry elegantly rounds off the whole thing and adds an interesting twist. Depending on your preference, one or two of the fish may dominate. Inspired by © Barbara-jo McIntosh, recipe from the book "Tin Fish Gourmet", Raincoast Books, 1998 We offer the following products from the recipe: Sardines Anchovies Tuna Olives (you can find a wider selection in our shop in Berlin-Wilmersdorf) Pepper Mustard Olive oil Sherry (unfortunately currently only available in our shop)

Christian Lohse's little outlier from "Lohses Mundwerk": sardines in tapenade by La Belle-Iloise under seared fennel, spring onions and tomatoes, with balsamic vinegar and piment d'Espelette. For 2 to 4 people, ready in just over half an hour, we recommend serving it with a Coteaux d'Aix-en-Provence rosé.

Thomas Vetter's recipe from the Berlin Food Week: Tartare made with spicy little sardines, lime and dill, served with oven-roasted Hokkaido squash with fennel, coriander seeds and star anise, and a cilantro and parsley pesto. Serves 4. We recommend pairing it with a dry rosé.

Philippes Nordic take on smørrebrød: marinated sardines topped with crisp apple, gherkin and carrot, on toasted rye bread. Serves 1 to 2, ready in fifteen minutes, and we recommend pairing it with a Vinho Verde from Márcio Lopes.

Who said it always has to be French around here? Asian cuisine, in particular, features many dishes with fish, and we love to be pleasantly surprised! This week, our head chef Thomas Vetter has drawn inspiration for a culinary encounter unlike any other: fresh summer rolls with Breton sardines – a recipe made for spring. Freshness, spice, zest, and everything you need to simply pick it up and enjoy!

The other day, I went canoeing on the Spree with some friends. It was wonderful—we felt like real freshwater pirates…! For our picnic on land, we had wonderfully chilled rosé (we had it in a bag towed behind us in the water) and delicious little puff pastry parcels that my friend Anne had prepared. I was inspired to make a sardine version of the recipe, which I "recreated" at home. It is super easy and looks really beautiful. Perfect for a picnic with friends or a dinner for two (or three, or four...)—as an aperitif, finger food, starter, or main course, perhaps with a green salad! Bon appétit! Ingredients (for 2 people) 1 pack of puff pastry (if you are not making it yourself) some sesame seeds 1 small eggplant 1 small zucchini 3–4 mushrooms Feta Zucchini cream and/or tapenade (black olive paste from Provence) 1 pack of sardines in oil (e.g., Sardines Saint-Georges by La Belle-Iloise) Olive oil Salt Pepper Wash the vegetables and cut them into cubes, while preheating the oven to 200°C. Heat oil in a pan and fry the vegetables until they are lightly browned and translucent, but still slightly al dente, and season with salt and pepper. Sprinkle the sesame seeds on the countertop or a board and roll out the puff pastry on top. Press the sesame seeds firmly into the pastry. Then cut the pastry into equal squares (I get 6 pieces from one roll). Spread a dollop of zucchini cream and tapenade in the center of the pastry squares (this can be omitted to taste. Since I really like both, I made 3 pieces with tapenade and the others with zucchini cream. The pieces with tapenade are more savory, while those with zucchini cream are more "vegetable-forward") and add small mounds of the vegetables, crumbled feta, and small pieces of sardine. Caution: do not put too much filling on the pastry, otherwise the pieces will rise too much in the oven! Fold the corners of the pastry diagonally so that they form nice, firm parcels. Press the loose ends and sides together well. This requires a little dexterity, but it is important, otherwise the pieces will rise too much in the oven. Bake on the middle rack for 15–20 minutes until golden brown and serve hot. Bon appétit! We opened a bottle of Alento Rosé 2016 Alentejo to go with it, which paired wonderfully! A young, intense Portuguese rosé full of joie de vivre—an easy everyday wine that goes well with any food, but is also fun to enjoy on its own.

Mmmmh, yummy yummy ... :) Recently found on the blog of a Spanish woman (www.letitbecosy.com), who lives in Mallorca and cooks mainly vegetarian. I have long enjoyed discovering new flavor combinations, and above all, I am now particularly interested in unusual combinations with fish ... that is why I added oil-packed sardines as an ingredient to one of her recipes. The recipe is very simple and the result is excitingly fresh and incredibly delicious. I can imagine that it would also taste excellent with sardines in Muscadet or sardines in water and lemon. Next time I will try it that way! And this is what it looks like when it is finished: Bon appétit!

Toast crusty bread, rub with pink garlic, top with a sardine, olive oil, pepper, coriander: star chef Christian Lohse's aperitif recipe in ten minutes. To accompany it, as a sweet counterpoint, a well-chilled Jurançon moelleux from Clos Lapeyre.

The beauty of being cooked for is that completely new combinations of flavors and ingredients often end up on the table, ones you wouldn't have thought of yourself. That was exactly the case this week when Thomas served us this exotic, spicy variation of an asparagus dish: alongside green and white asparagus, he surprised us with a sweet potato-coconut cream whose mild sweetness provided a lovely contrast to the spicy sardines. When everything had been eaten, we licked our fingers for more and are delighted that the asparagus season has only just begun.