If you just bought a tin of something for yourself and are standing in your kitchen, staring at it and wondering what happens next, this is the guide for you.

Open the tin. Put the fish on something. Eat it. The something is whatever you have. A piece of bread. A handful of rice. A plate of pasta you boiled while the tin sat unopened. A cooked potato. A packet of instant noodles you drained and tossed with the fish and its oil. Toast. Crackers.

That is the whole meal. One tin, one starch, two minutes of assembly. Pour the oil or sauce from the tin over whatever you put the fish on.

You're not cooking anything, not preparing sides, not building a board. You're eating a finished dish that happens to arrive in a tin.

One quick trick: if you're eating the tin straight with bread or toast, drop the unopened tin in a bath of hot water from the tap for about five minutes before opening it. The fish and oil warm through, the flavors loosen, and the whole thing tastes more alive than a tin eaten cold straight off the shelf. No stove, no pan, no cleanup.

Everything that follows is variations on that move. Different preparations of fish want slightly different treatment, but the core move never changes: tin, starch, oil over the top, eat.

Most of the variety in the fish-first world comes from how the fish is prepared and what it is packed in. The same sardine in six preparations becomes six different eating experiences. Learning the preparations is more useful than memorizing brands, because preparations repeat across producers. Once you know what en escabeche does to a mussel, you know what it does to a sardine and a bonito too.

In olive oil. The most common and most versatile preparation. The fish is packed in extra virgin olive oil, which carries flavor both into and out of the fish. The oil is part of the dish, not packaging. Dump the tin over plain rice and the oil becomes the sauce. Toss with cooked spaghetti and a squeeze of lemon. Spoon over a cooked potato. On bread, let the oil soak in. Works on any fish: sardines, mackerel, tuna, anchovies, mussels, octopus.

En escabeche. A Spanish preparation with Arab-Persian roots, brought to Iberia by the Moors. Cooked fish is marinated in olive oil, vinegar, paprika, garlic, bay leaf, and sometimes onion and peppers. The vinegar is the signature. Bright, tangy, a little spicy. The liquid at the bottom of the tin is essentially salad dressing. Common with sardines, mussels, bonito, tuna, and small whitefish. Pour the whole tin over white rice, or toss with pasta, or over a cooked potato smashed with a fork. On sturdy bread that can stand up to the acid.

In tomato sauce. Tomato gives the fish sweetness and depth and makes it forgiving. Most often sardines and mackerel, sometimes tuna. The sauce is thick enough to coat whatever you put it on. Spoon the whole tin over rice, over pasta, over a cooked potato, into a bowl of instant ramen with the seasoning packet halved. On crusty bread, or toasted bread with butter underneath. Or mashed with lime and chili and scooped into a sandwich. This is the preparation that made Portuguese sardines famous and is still standard afternoon snack food in Portugal.

Smoked. The fish is cold-smoked or hot-smoked before being packed, usually in olive oil. Smoke changes the flavor more than any other preparation and is the most likely preparation to win over someone who thinks they do not like fish. Taste tests of canned smoked trout describe it as firm, not very fishy, and a genuine beginner-friendly entry point. Smoked mackerel, smoked trout, smoked salmon, smoked mussels, smoked oysters. Flake into scrambled eggs. Stir into instant ramen. Toss with warm pasta and a spoon of cream cheese. On crackers, on toast with butter, on rice with a splash of soy sauce.

Piri-piri and other spiced oils. A Portuguese preparation, especially common in sardines and mackerel. The fish is packed in olive oil with piri-piri chili, sometimes bay leaf, garlic, or pickled vegetables. Heat builds slowly. Dump the whole tin, oil and all, over white rice and it becomes a spiced rice bowl. Over instant noodles, the spiced oil replaces the seasoning packet. On plain bread so the spice comes through. Cold beer nearby.

In brine or natural. Water and salt only, sometimes just the fish's own juices. The cleanest way to taste a fish's actual flavor. Used most often with tuna, mussels, clams, cockles. Lower in calories than oil-packed, but drier. Better with something that adds fat back in: fold into a rice bowl with a splash of olive oil and lemon, into pasta with butter and garlic, into a sandwich with mayonnaise. Pure brined tuna on bread by itself is what made people think they didn't like tinned fish. Add fat.

In Galician-style sauce. Known in Spanish as salsa gallega or estilo gallego. A regional preparation of paprika, tomato, garlic, olive oil, and sometimes onion and Spanish wine. Most common on cod, scallops, and shellfish. Distinct from pulpo a la gallega, which uses just paprika and olive oil on octopus. Spoon the whole tin over cooked potatoes the way it is done in Galicia. Over rice. Over pasta. The sauce wants something plain underneath to do the work.

In Galician butter. Not a seasoned-butter preparation. Simply high-quality traditional butter from Galicia, used as a luxurious pack medium. Island Creek's Tuna Belly in Galician Butter is the reference tin, featuring butter churned daily by a single Galician dairy farmer. Warm the tin in a hot water bath first so the butter melts and coats the fish. Spread thick on toasted sourdough. Spoon over warm pasta, hot rice, or a cooked potato. The butter does what a great olive oil does, but richer.

The most common reason people avoid fish-first tins is the fear that the fish will taste too fishy. The concern is usually rooted in experiences with low-quality fish that has been sitting around, not with properly packed tinned fish. But certain fish and preparations are more forgiving than others for someone building their tolerance.

The mildest fish-first tins tend to be smoked trout, canned salmon, smoked mussels, and bonito in olive oil. Smoked rainbow trout is a particularly gentle starting point. It has a mild, nutty flavor close to salmon and the smoke preparation tames what fishiness there is.

The most assertive tins are anchovies (salt-cured), sardines packed straight in oil without additional seasoning, and ventresca, which is intensely rich from the fat. These are not the tins to start with if you are skeptical. Work up to them.

A fish in escabeche, in piri-piri, or smoked is almost always easier than the same fish packed simply in oil. If you like a fish smoked, you can usually work backwards to liking it plain.

Most tinned fish coverage stops at finfish. Shellfish and cephalopods (octopus, squid, cuttlefish) are the hidden category where the best value and the most distinctive flavors live. They are also the tins most people walk past without knowing what to do with.

Mussels. Almost always cooked and packed in oil, escabeche, or brine. Spicy and smoked mussels are common. Dump the whole tin over rice or pasta, oil and all. Toss with pasta, garlic, and a squeeze of lemon. Stir into cream cheese and spread on crackers. On buttered bread. Mussels are often the cheapest fish-first entry point, which makes them a good place to start.

Clams and cockles. Usually in brine or their own juices. Smaller, sweeter, more delicate than mussels. Fold into pasta with a little garlic and olive oil to make a fast clam sauce, with the pasta water and the liquid from the tin becoming the whole sauce. Over rice with butter. On bread with lemon. Cockles are a Galician staple and worth seeking out.

Octopus. Almost always already cooked, usually in olive oil, sometimes in Galician-style sauce with paprika and garlic. The classic preparation is pulpo a la gallega: slices of octopus on cooked potato, drizzled with olive oil, sprinkled with smoked paprika and coarse salt. You can do exactly that straight from the tin in about a minute. Over rice works too. Texture is tender and slightly chewy, not rubbery when it's been properly prepared.

Squid and cuttlefish. Often packed in their own ink, which is rich, briny, and black. Intimidating visually, excellent in practice. Dump over white rice, let the ink dye everything black, squeeze lemon. On bread. Cuttlefish in ink is a Galician classic that is essentially impossible to screw up.

Scallops. Less common in tins, but when found, usually in brine or in Galician-style sauce. Treat them like clams. Restraint, lemon, a plain starch underneath.

In Spain and Portugal, a tin of fish is almost never eaten dry. This is the part of the tradition Americans tend to skip and probably shouldn't.

The default is cold beer. A light lager, a pilsner, anything crisp. Works with almost any preparation.

A chilled glass of white wine works too. Albariño from Galicia is the traditional pairing with shellfish and is worth seeking out if you are eating octopus, mussels, or clams. Vinho verde from Portugal works similarly. Nothing about this needs to be fancy. A five dollar bottle does the job.

Vermouth, sherry, cider, even sparkling water with lemon. The point is something cold and a little acidic to cut through the oil. Red wine can work with tomato-sauce and escabeche preparations, though it is less traditional.

If you are drinking nothing at all, that is also fine. The fish and the starch are enough.