Bychky v Tomati (бички в томаті, Azov gobies in tomato)

Ingredients

Equipment Needed

• •A wide heavy frying pan
• •A heavy lidded casserole or deep saute pan
• •A shallow bowl for flour
• •Clean glass jars or a covered dish for chilling

Instructions

1. 1

   Salt the fish

   Pat the gobies very dry, then season them with salt and black pepper. Let them sit while you slice the onions and grate the carrots. The salt tightens the flesh a little, which helps the fish stay whole later instead of dissolving into tomato.

   If you cannot find Azov gobies, use small sardines, smelt, sprats, or little mullet. Choose fish small enough that a long braise can soften the bones.
2. 2

   Fry the gobies

   Dust the fish lightly in flour and shake off every sulky excess bit. Heat a good layer of sunflower oil in a wide pan and fry the fish in batches until the skins are golden and firm, turning once. You are not cooking them through with ceremony; you are building a jacket so they can survive the sauce.

   Do not crowd the pan. Crowded fish weep, the flour goes pasty, and the sauce later tastes muddy instead of clean and red.
3. 3

   Sweeten the onions

   Pour off any tired dark oil and leave about three tablespoons in the pan. Add the onions with a pinch of salt and cook them low and slow until soft, gold at the edges, and sweet-smelling. Add the carrots and garlic and keep cooking until the oil turns orange. This is the zasmazhka, the slow-sweated flavour base, doing quiet work.

4. 4

   Build the sauce

   Stir in the tomato paste and let it darken by one shade, then add the passata, sugar, vinegar or tomato brine, bay leaves, peppercorns, and hot pepper if you want one. Let the sauce bubble until the raw tomato smell changes into something rounder and cooked, like summer tomatoes left too long in the sun. Taste it now: it should be sweet-sour and slightly too bold, because the fish will soften it.

   Tomato brine from fermented tomatoes is beautiful here if you have it. Vinegar works, a bit more modern and sharper, but the brine gives a deeper sourness.
5. 5

   Layer and braise

   Spoon a little sauce into the bottom of a heavy pot, lay in a layer of fried fish, then repeat with sauce and fish until everything is tucked in. Add just enough water to loosen the sauce so it can move around the fish, not so much that you make soup. Cover and cook at the gentlest tremble until the sauce thickens, the oil glows at the edges, and a small bone from the thickest fish crushes easily between your fingers.

   This is the step that does not forgive rushing. If the bones still resist, the dish is not finished, no matter what the clock says.
6. 6

   Rest and serve

   Turn off the heat and let the pot rest until the sauce settles and the fish stop looking separate from it. Taste for salt, sugar, and sourness, then finish with dill if serving hot. For the Mariupol red-sauce way, pack the fish into clean jars or a covered dish once cool and chill overnight. Tomorrow it will be better.

Chef Tips

• •The fish size decides everything. Very small gobies can soften beautifully; larger fish may keep a few firm bones, so lift out the backbone at the table if needed and do not make a religion of it.
• •Use unrefined sunflower oil if you can. It gives the sauce that green-gold southern smell, Ukraine in a bottle of oil.
• •The sauce should taste stronger before the braise than you want it at the end. Fish, flour, and time will round off the edges.
• •This keeps well in the fridge for 4 days. Serve it cold with bread, hot with boiled potatoes, or tucked into lunchboxes for people who know what good leftovers are.

Advance Preparation

• •The dish is better made a day ahead, once the tomato has soaked into the fish and the bones have softened further.
• •You can fry the fish and make the sauce a few hours ahead, then layer and braise when the kitchen has cooled down.
• •Chilled leftovers keep for 4 days. Do not can this recipe for shelf storage unless you are following tested pressure-canning guidance for fish.

Frequently Asked Questions

Nutrition Information

1 serving (about 380g)