Deep Dives: The Eleven Top Sellers (It’s One Louder, Isn’t It?)

When you hear people talk about how you need to try Portuguese sardines, chances are these are the ones they mean. Often referred to as a “cult classic” brand, Nuri’s recent showing at the worldbestfish.com rankings (this style was ranked #23 overall) is proof that their devoted followers are right.

“Not with machines, hands.”

120g (4.3 oz) tin

Baltic Sea sprat – lightly smoked, with heather and chamomile.
In cold pressed rapeseed oil.

Brisling’ is a small fish that traditionally was landed in great numbers along the Scandinavian and Baltic coastlines. Here it was prepared by hand and preserved in cans to be sold as a Nordic version of sardine.

The brisling from FANGST is our contribution to revive and create a new place for this fine fish as the ‘Nordic sardine’.

Ranked #55 on the worldbestfish.com Overall list.

For menu suggestions from Fangst, please see this PDF:  Fangst inspiration

Net weight: 100g

Made with three piri-piri peppers per tin instead of the usual one, and stored for a minimum of three months before being released so that the capsaicin has time to suffuse through the contents of the tin. Get ready to meet your new all-time favorite tin of sardines.

120g (4.3 oz) tin

In the world of sprats and sardines, the smaller and more delicate the fish, the higher the premium is placed on it. The Cross-Pack offers 22-38 fish per tin. The other King Oscar 2-Layer varieties contain up to 22 fish. These small fish are rare. And delicious.

22-38 fish

106g tin

Pictured in an olive and pimento tapenade on crackers with parsley.

In his childhood, Martin co-founder of FANGST, enjoyed his many visits on trout farms with his father, a biologist dedicated to developing world-class farming of trout in Danish freshwater. In this can, we have preserved a bit of that memory – and some delicious tinned smoked trout with juniper and lemon thyme.

110g tin

Tinned smoked trout pictured with buttered marble rye.

While a lot of sardines in tomato sauce are using basic tomato puree to mask an inferior product, Nuri takes a different approach. They take the sauce seriously, and have developed a family recipe that is downright delicious. They put so much effort into their sardines, it would be foolish not to care as much about the sauce. The “spiced” in this version is Piri-piri pepper. If you want it tasty but not zesty, try the Nuri Sardines in Tomato Sauce.

125g (4.4 oz) tin

Dan’s Tasting Notes: “Superb. When I cracked open the lid the aroma was pure that knowing half laugh Judi Dench delivers in Chocolat the first time she experiences the drinking chocolate. The level of red pepper (1) and garlic (1 clove) and oil and salt and fishness was impeccably balanced. I saved the oil for later use. These are ‘in the Basque style’, which for anchovies means they’re not tightly packed as we usually see with tinned fishies. They’re loose, to give the olive oil the ability to fully saturate every bit. The larger tin also allows for longer pieces of anchovy. The pleasures abound and compound.  I can now, from experience and without reservation, unequivocally recommend Olasagasti Anchovies a la Basque. Save the oil. For salad dressing, for croutons, home fries, for fried onions, for to cure all that ails you.”

Olasagasti, located in the Basque region of Spain, has been in business since 1929 and produce their products using traditional Spanish methods. Unlike the vinegar-marinated white “boquerone” style of anchovies, these anchovies are fried in olive oil “a la Donostiarra” with garlic and cayenne pepper.

One unique aspect of these anchovies is that the tins are not packed tightly to the brim with fish. This is a trademark of Olasagasti, who feel that using a larger tin gives the anchovies space to move and become covered in the marinade of olive oil, garlic, cayenne, wine vinegar and salt. The leftover oil is a flavorful bonus you can use for sauteing vegetables or shellfish.

190g tin

Pictured with potato pancakes and chive sour cream.

Something of a minor cult classic among the kind of tinned seafood fans who make regular pilgrimages to ethnic grocery stores in their quest to try all the sardines. This is a sardine with superfans.

The tin I sampled had three big and one small fish. They were firm and fell apart as I worked them onto crackers with my fork. They weren’t pretty but they were definitely pretty good

124g (4.38 oz) tin

Pictured with scrambled eggs and sourdough toast.

We call our mackerel “white, white” because in our production we use essentially mackerel from the Scomber japonicus species, the species that abounds in the Portuguese continental shore.

Ranked #75 on the worldbestfish.com Overall list, and #4 on the Mackerel list.

120g (85g drained) tin

It was in the 1950s, when Joan Tapias was at the forefront of the Espinaler company, when his wife, Ventureta Roldós, created a sauce to dress the Galician shellfish preserves that were served in the ‘Taberna’.

Ventureta, well-known in the village as a great lover of cuisine, gathered together the best ingredients to make Espinaler sauce: top-quality wine vinegar, black pepper, red pepper and a selection of spices that she never reveals.

The result: an unique sauce that some people have tried to copy but none have achieved. With this product, Espinaler has become an icon around Catalonia.

This is not a “hot” sauce in any sense. It is without heat.

92 ml glass bottle

Back in olden times, King Oscar used to offer their products in the USA under three different brand names, depending on the region of the country they were being sold in. The three brands were King Oscar, Tiny Tots, and Spirit of Norway. Over the years the Spirit of Norway brand was phased out, but the Tiny Tots following was just too devoted to the brand. Legend and lore say that there’s a little more “royal love” in the Tiny Tots than in the King Oscar. Who are we to argue with irrational passions?

Two layer, 12-22 fish.

106g tin