[ENG] How to Clean Sardines / كيفية تنظيف السردين - CookingWithAlia - Episode 445

This new series is all about Fish and how to prepare it Moroccan style! Let's start with sardines, the most popular fish in Morocco - this is a step-by-step video on how to clean sardines and prepare sardine kefta (ground meat)
RECIPE:
INGREDIENTS:
1 kilo fresh sardines
DIRECTIONS:
1- Wash the sardines with cold water.
2- Hold the sardine belly up in your left hand. Using your right hands detach the head of the sardine. Then with your index finger, starting at the point where the head meets the body, go through along the belly of the sardine to open it and remove the guts.
3- Using your thumb, gently scrape the the skin toward the head to remove the scales.
4- Rinse the sardine clean and then pat dry using paper towels.
5- With your thumb, gently press the sardine backbone inside the belly cavity towards the tail. Then grasp the backbone between your thumb and forefinger and carefully lift it up and away from the fillet to remove it. Discard the backbone.
6- You have a nice sardine filet that you can already use. However, if you want to do further cleaning follow the next steps.
7- Flip the filet with bottom down, and pinch the small fin in back of the fish and gently remove it.
8- Finally, with your finger nails, gently peel the very thin skin on silver side of the fish. The fresher the fish, the easier it is to peel this skin. If it's hard to peel, just skip this step. Rinse the sardine. Now you have an absolutely clean sardine fillet!
9- You can use these fillets for grilling or follow the next steps to make sardine kefta (ground meat).
10- Use a manual potato masher to mash the sardines because if you use an electrical grinder it will make the texture very mushy. Place the sardine fillets in the manual potato masher and mash them into ground meat.
11- Refer my other recipes for how to use this sardine kefta