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When you live with a chef, you deal with the possibility that he will turn the bathroom into a meat locker.
Andrew Feinberg, for example, took along his obsession with curing when he and his wife, Francine Stephens, left the East Village for the Berkshires before opening Franny's, in Brooklyn. So there was some imaginative use of space.
"I'd wake up in the morning, go to brush my teeth, and there'd be a ham leg hanging above my head in the mirror," Ms. Stephens said. "Every day it was, like, 'Good morning, pig.'."
On this early Monday, however, "Good morning, fish'' was more apropos, since the current object of Mr. Feinberg's obsession was sardines. He had a silvery pile of the whole small fish in a colander in the sink. After curing for two days in a snowdrift of salt (in the refrigerator, not the bathroom), they needed a good rinse and a vinegary, escabeche-like marinade before he could turn them into a sardine, potato and egg salad, a dish he sometimes features as an appetizer.
Although Franny's, in Prospect Heights, is primarily a pizza place, a loyal set of its customers - about 10 percent, Ms. Stephens estimated - come just to eat the appetizers. Mr. Feinberg always includes several house-cured options like sardines, salt cod, soprassata, pancetta or tongue. He also cures his own garlic sausage and fennel salami for pizza toppings.
Mr. Feinberg's interest in curing stems from his love of Italian salumi: prosciutto, pancetta and salami. He cultivated the hobby while working at Savoy in SoHo, where he experimented with soprassata, pancetta and pepperoni. The results, however, were inconsistent and often foul and unusable.
"There wasn't a lot written about curing back then, and most of the books I could find were really dated,'' Mr. Feinberg said. "So I didn't really know what was happening to the meat. Sometimes the end result was fantastic, and sometimes it would be gray, rank and disgusting."
As he spoke, he filleted the sardines, sliding his knife between the flesh and skeleton and using a wiggling, back-and-forth maneuver to remove the meat from the bones. The fish had emerged from its cure with a deep reddish-brown color and a firm waxy texture, like butter just out of the refrigerator. Next he put the fillets in a bowl of water to help remove the excess salt.
The couple's move to the Berkshires, right after Sept. 11, 2001, ("We really wanted to get out of the city," Ms. Stephens said) gave Mr. Feinberg the mental and physical space to indulge his passion. Thus the hams and sausages dangling in the shower.
"We had a lot of visitors who thought Andrew was insane," Ms. Stephens said, picking at a pan of sliced Yukon Gold potatoes that were cooling on a rack on the dining table next to the kitchen. Mr. Feinberg had baked them in wine, garlic, bay leaves and chili flakes, and they were infused with all those flavors: as tantalizing as potato chips but without the crunch. Somewhat abruptly Ms. Stephens crimped the foil cover back over the pan to keep herself away from its contents and continued her tales about living in the Berkshires.
During the day, she said, Mr. Feinberg worked on his curing technique and took a night job making cheese. She managed the local farmer's market and helped various nonprofit groups. After a year, with many, many pounds of salted meat and fish quite literally under their belts, the couple were ready to return to the city to open Franny's.
Now, instead of using the bathroom, Mr. Feinberg cures his meats in a custom-built temperature-and-humidity controlled redwood closet in the office, while the fish cures in the walk-in refrigerator. "The results are much more consistent," he said, before checking the sardines in their marinade. When most of the flesh was opaque and no longer dark red, they were ready.
Ms. Stephens stood nearby, fork in hand, as Mr. Feinberg layered the fish on top of the potatoes, garnishing the platter with hard-cooked eggs, capers and more olive oil. The sardines tasted oniony and pungent, like pickled herring with a chili-acid zing and a dense meaty texture. They were completely different from and far better than the usual canned or jarred kind. And they are relatively easy to make; you won't need to greet them in the shower every morning. Unless, of course, you want to.
Home-Cured Sardine, Potato and Egg Salad
Time 2 1/2 hours, plus 48 hours curing
Serves 6 to 8
Cured Sardines:
9 fresh sardines, cleaned but left whole
Kosher salt
1/3 cup extra-virgin olive oil
2 small red onions, halved and sliced into half moons
2 garlic cloves, thinly sliced
1 bay leaf
1 cup white wine vinegar
2 tablespoons sugar
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
Potatoes:
3 large Yukon gold potatoes, peeled and sliced 3/8-inch thick
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
1/4 white wine
3 smashed and peeled garlic cloves
2 bay leaves
1/2 teaspoons coarse sea salt or kosher salt
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
Salad:
6 eggs, hard-cooked, peeled and sliced
1/4 cup capers, rinsed
Juice of 1/2 lemon
3 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
Coarse sea salt or kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1. Rinse the sardines and dry well. Line a baking pan with a double layer of paper towels. Place a rack in the pan and arrange the sardines on top. Sprinkle liberally with salt, coating the fish completely. Flip the fish (some of the salt will fall off, some will stay on) and salt the other side. Refrigerate for 36 to 48 hours, turning the fish and adding more salt every 8 to 12 hours. The fish should feel firm and waxy. Rinse well.
2. Using a sharp knife, slice the sardine fillets off the bones, starting just behind the gills and going down to the tail; use a back and forth, wiggling motion and keeping the knife as close to the bones as possible. Cover the fish fillets with water and let soak, changing the water 3 or 4 times, until most of the salt is gone, about 1 hour. Drain well.
3. Meanwhile, fill a large bowl with water and ice. Heat the oil in a large skillet and add the onions, garlic and bay leaf. Sauté over medium heat until the onion is translucent, about 5 minutes. Add the vinegar, sugar and red pepper flakes and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes, then transfer to a metal bowl. Place the bowl in the ice water and stir until the vinegar mixture is cool. Add the sardines and let rest for 1 hour at room temperature or up to 2 days in the refrigerator.
4. To prepare the potatoes, preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. Lay the potato slices in a 9-by-13-inch baking pan. Whisk together the remaining ingredients, pour them over the potatoes and cover with foil. Bake until the potatoes are tender, about 40 minutes. Uncover and let cool.
5. To serve, arrange the potatoes on a serving platter. Remove the sardines from the marinade and lay them on top, followed by the eggs and capers. Sprinkle with the lemon juice, then the olive oil. Scatter some of the red onions from the sardines over all, and season with salt and pepper to taste.