It’s unjust. Canned fish doesn’t receive the honor that it rightly deserves. Unless you are Portuguese, eating canned fish can be snubbed and held in poor regard as a sign of laziness, culinary ineptitude, or indifference for the excellence of a freshly cut slab of fish. But I am here to tell you, this couldn’t be further from the truth. There, tucked away in a dark nook of my pantry, lie compact treasures just waiting and pleading to be transformed into plats de resistance.

Since canned fish is already cooked, for dishes preferred warm, there’s no need for heating longer than but a minute or two. And don’t commit the woeful crime of not including the liquid that comes with it, as it is the life of the party. Five 🖐🏻minutes is all it takes to rustle up something these tinned marvels will have you becoming sentimental over.

[If you are to any degree skeptical they might not be safe for consumption—given their shelf life and the rare possibility that the can might not be intact—do rest assured, modern canning is as dependable as those other two universal realities, death and taxes.]