These tasty little fish, which come in small tins ready to use, can help any hostess make an appetizer course in no time. At less formal gatherings, the opened tin may be placed directly on a small dish surrounded with leaves of curly lettuce and lemon wedges.

If you prefer to remove them from the tin, do so very carefully so that the sardines remain intact. For an interesting effect, place sardines on small round dish in a circle with their tails meeting at center. Place a radish rose center and surround circle with lemon wedges.

Another way is to form 2 semicircles or fans, garnishing one of them with chopped hard-cooked egg whites and the other with chopped hard-cooked egg yolks. Instead of eggs, each sardine may be topped with a thin strip of red mild pickled pepper.

Sardines may also be lined end to end round the rim of a cold-fish platter, with small radish roses separating 1 fish from the next. The sardines may be decorated with a strip or squiggle of gelled mayonnaise from a decorator tube.