I've debated whether I should write this one, but I did say I was sharing failures, and this failure was fucking spectacular. I picked up a pack of frozen whole sardines last weekend, and I thought I could do something cool with them. 
So I thawed them out and had no idea what to do after that.
So I figured I'd prep my veggies. I sliced up some shiitakes and diced some red bell pepper (red bowl), minced some red onion and garlic (top-right bowl), and quartered and salted some grape tomatoes.
Okay, back to the fish. I figured I should remove the heads and tails, but I didn't want to just toss them out, so I thought I'd make some broth for...something. I didn't have a fucking plan, if you couldn't tell. I threw those bits into a pot with water, added some salt, a couple bay leaves, and got it started simmering.
So now what? I was thinking maybe I'd cook them like this, but then I noticed that lovely goop falling out the head end of the nearest fish and realized I needed to clean those bastards.
I ran the tip of my knife down the belly of the fish, pulled them open a little bit, and scooped out the guts.
Intestines, stomach, etc. It was not the most fun thing in the world. I'm including all of this to give you the same fun experience I had.
So once the guts were out, I salted and peppered the insides of the fish. I thought that seemed like the kind of thing people would do. I was fuckin grasping at straws, man. I went ahead and salted and peppered the skin, too, because fuck it.
Okay, enough of that. I started up my pan with some olive oil and dumped in the garlic and onion. When the garlic started to crisp up (which didn't take long because it was minced), I dumped in about a teaspoon of red pepper flakes, too.
Then I added in the fish. Because of how small they were (and how thin the meat was), I knew it wouldn't take long to cook. Unfortunately, the skin peeled off when I flipped them, which makes sense, but also sucked, because at that point I realized that making this shit look good would not be a thing tonight.
Meanwhile, the broth just kept simmering.
Once both sides of the fish had been cooked, I flipped them up onto their backs and got them out of the way to add in my mushrooms and pepper. I mixed them around as well as I could while the mushrooms soaked up all of the oil, then I finally gave up and moved the fish out of the pan.
I decided to use soy sauce to season my veggies, so I tossed some of that in, mixed it all around, and let it cook.
At this point, I decided the bones needed to come out of the fish. I thought I did a good job. I later learned that I was fucking wrong. Meanwhile, the veggies were starting to stick because all liquid was sucked up by the greedy asshole mushrooms, so I got a ladleful of the fish broth and poured it (through a strainer) into the pan to "deglaze" and make the kitchen smell like a bait shop. Then I dumped the tomatoes in because fuck it.
I fucked the fish all to hell and back removing the bones, so I just said "fuck it," chopped it up with a fork, and shoved it all into the pan, too. If you look closely, you can see the damn bones sticking out. fml
So I said "fuck it" again and dumped in some leftover rice. I added some Japanese barbecue sauce, a splash of mirin, about a teaspoon of sesame oil, and about a tablespoon of "wasabi sauce," and just mixed it all up, feeling disgusted with myself on multiple levels.
See? Plating just didn't even fucking matter tonight. I dumped it into a bowl and ate it.
Sadly, it tasted pretty fucking delightful. I mean, with all the sauces I added, it was going to. It was nowhere near the fancy shit I was hoping I'd come up with on the fly, but I guess not everything has to be cool, right? Oh, and by the way, sooooo many fucking bones. Even if you pick out every bone you see, there are about 40 fucking billion throughout there that are just gonna stick in your throat or between your teeth, or stab you in the gums. They're tiny, like hair thin, and they're just fucking everywhere. Next time I do sardines (I used 3 tonight and have 8 more...), I'm gonna have to plan ahead and figure out something to do with the goddamn bones.
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