Your First Six Tins: A Beginner's Path Through Tinned Fish, in the Order to Open Them
Most people who say they do not like tinned fish opened the wrong tin first. They started with the strongest flavor, or the one with the most beautiful wrapper, or the one someone told them was the best, and it was too much, too soon, and they concluded that the whole category was not for them. The way in is a sequence. Each tin below tastes like a very good version of something you already know, and each one teaches the palate something the next one needs, so that by the sixth you are eating things you would not have believed you would like in the first week. Our complete guide is the map of the whole territory; this is the trail through it, six tins long, with what to serve each on, what it teaches, and where to go next.
Before the first tin: three things that decide everything
Serve it at room temperature; a tin from the refrigerator tastes of nothing, so let it sit out for twenty minutes. Serve it with the three things that make any tin better: good bread or a plain cracker, a lemon, and either butter or the tin's own olive oil. And open it over a plate, because the oil is part of the food. That is the whole equipment. Our label guide covers how to choose a tin; this page assumes you have chosen well, which for the six below means olive oil, a named cannery, and a Latin species name on the back.
Tin one: a small Portuguese sardine in olive oil
Why first: because a good sardine tastes like a clean, rich, mild fish, closer to a fresh grilled sardine than to anything from a supermarket can, and because the small ones, four to six to a tin, are the gentlest. Skinless and boneless if you are nervous; whole if you trust us, since the bones are soft and the flavor is fuller. Serve it: on buttered toast, a squeeze of lemon, flaky salt. Nothing else the first time. It teaches: that "fishy" is a fault of bad fish, not a property of fish, and that the oil in the tin is good enough to eat. If you liked it: the same sardine in a spiced or lemon oil, then a larger sardine. If it did not land: try the same tin warmed for a minute on the toast under the broiler, which softens the edges, or move to tin two, which is milder still.
Tin two: Spanish tuna belly, ventresca, in olive oil
Why second: because everyone has eaten tuna and almost nobody has eaten this. Ventresca is the belly cut of a bonito or a yellowfin, the fattest and most tender part, hand-packed in oil, and it eats like a piece of poached fish rather than a flake of protein. It is the tin that makes the case for price. Serve it: on a plate, drizzled with its oil, with a few of the best tomatoes you can find and salt; or over white beans with sliced onion and sherry vinegar, the Tuscan way. It teaches: texture, and that the same word on two tins can mean two different foods. If you liked it: the loin from the same cannery, then a tuna in escabeche. If it did not: it always does.
Tin three: smoked trout
Why third: a change of direction. Smoke is a flavor most people already love, and a smoked trout fillet in oil is the tin that reads as brunch rather than as a foreign country: flaky, gently smoky, freshwater rather than sea. Serve it: on a bagel or rye with crème fraîche or cream cheese, capers, red onion and dill; or flaked into scrambled eggs; or on a cracker with a squeeze of lemon. It teaches: that tins are not only sea fish and not only Iberian, and that a tin can replace the deli counter. If you liked it: smoked sprats, then a Baltic sprat in a spicier oil, then smoked mackerel. If it did not: smoke is a preference; skip to four.
Tin four: mackerel in escabeche
Why fourth: because now the palate is ready for a sauce. Escabeche is a vinegar-and-paprika marinade the Spanish and Portuguese have used to preserve fish for centuries, and a mackerel in it is rich, tangy, a little sweet and a little smoky, with the vinegar doing to the oily fish exactly what the acid guide says acid does to fat. Serve it: on toast with the sauce spooned over, or with boiled potatoes and parsley, or with a cold beer and a pile of good chips as the Spanish do. It teaches: that the sauce is part of the food, and that a tin can be a complete dish. If you liked it: sardines in tomato, then the pickled-sauce tins, then a piri-piri. If it did not: try the same mackerel plain in olive oil, which is one of the best tins there is.
Tin five: Galician mussels in escabeche
Why fifth: shellfish are the step most beginners never take, and Galician mussels in escabeche are the easiest way across: plump, sweet, in a red sauce that is now familiar from tin four, and from the rías our Galicia piece describes. Count the pieces on the label; fewer means larger. Serve it: on a toothpick with a potato chip beneath each mussel and a drop of hot sauce, which is the Spanish bar snack that makes a tin disappear in four minutes; or on toast with the sauce. It teaches: the piece count, the vermouth-hour way of eating, and that the most expensive tins on the shelf are shellfish for a reason. If you liked it: cockles in brine, then razor clams, then squid in ink. If it did not: shellfish is either yours or not; the fish tins are still all yours.
Tin six: an anchovy that changes how you cook
Why last: because an anchovy is not a lunch, it is an ingredient, and its lesson is the biggest one. A good Cantabrian fillet, salt-cured for months and packed in oil, is intensely salty and intensely savory, and a single fillet dissolved into a pan of garlic and oil makes a pasta, a dressing or a braise taste as if it had cooked for a day. Eaten straight, one fillet on buttered bread is a revelation for the prepared and an ambush for the unprepared, which is why it is sixth. Serve it: one fillet on buttered toast, first; then two dissolved into olive oil with garlic for a pound of spaghetti, per the anchovy guide. It teaches: umami, and that the tinned fish shelf is a pantry as much as a larder. If you liked it: boquerones (the white vinegar-cured kind), then colatura, then bagna cauda. If it did not: use them only in cooking, where nobody tastes fish, only depth.
The six, at a glance
| # | Tin | Serve on | It teaches | Then try |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Small Portuguese sardines in olive oil | Buttered toast, lemon, flaky salt | Good fish is not fishy | Spiced sardines, larger sardines |
| 2 | Spanish ventresca in olive oil | A plate, tomatoes, salt; or white beans | Texture; price | Tuna loin, tuna in escabeche |
| 3 | Smoked trout in oil | Rye, crème fraîche, capers, dill | Tins beyond the sea | Sprats, smoked mackerel |
| 4 | Mackerel in escabeche | Toast with the sauce; potatoes; chips and beer | The sauce is the food | Sardines in tomato, piri-piri |
| 5 | Galician mussels in escabeche | Toothpick, potato chip, hot sauce | Piece counts; the vermouth hour | Cockles, razor clams, squid in ink |
| 6 | Cantabrian anchovies in oil | One on buttered toast; then in the pan | Umami; the tin as pantry | Boquerones, colatura, bagna cauda |
After six
You will know which direction you lean: toward the plain, beautiful fish in oil, toward the sauced tins, toward shellfish, or toward the anchovy as a cooking tool. Each has a longer path, and the complete guide maps them. The tasting format is how to take six friends through this in an evening, and the nutrition page answers the question someone at the table will ask. The six are on our shelf at 263 Josephine Street in Cherry Creek, Denver, and ship nationwide from theambrosianpantry.com, in that order if you like, or as a box.
