¡Sardinas!

Imagine my surprise when recently visiting the fish stall for samphire, to find that the new season of sardines (Cornish) had landed. Of course I bought six for breakfast.

These little beauties need cooking as soon as possible so don't leave them lying about for too long or they will start to fall apart. Mine were in the sea Friday, on the counter Saturday and on the plate Sunday morning.

I don't include any reference to sardinas in The Prawns of Lebowa but this is a meal that I could imagine the Collector trying out. Here is an extract to give you some idea.

So now for my breakfast!

There is a lot of oil in sardinas and so they really benefit from a taste that is going to cut across all of that. In the recipe below I used preserved lemons

but I guess you could use fresh lemons, sliced and fried in a little olive oil or butter. I also added some samphire for a salty kick. In this case it was French Samphire. I served them with bruschetta.

The Ingredients:-

• 6 fresh sardinas

• 4 small preserved lemons

• medium bunch of samphire

• olive oil

• 50g unsalted butter

For the bruschetta:-

• Four pieces of stale bread already cut in slices

• Olive oil

• 2 large tomatoes chopped

• 3 large cloves garlic chopped

A note about salt. I added no salt to this recipe. The samphire and the preserved lemons provided adequate but if you are using fresh lemons or not using samphire you may need to adjust to taste, having a mind to your blood pressure!

A note about fat. Sardinas are high in oil content. 100g of fresh cooked sardinas contains about 7.8g of fat. They are however rich in Omega-3 fatty acids which are good for heart, brain and metabolic health.

Method:-

I started by roughly chopping the garlic; finely chopping the tomatoes (well sort of); and slicing the preserved lemons. I wanted the garlic to undercook slightly so left it quite large but if you prefer it could be grated or minced using the flattened blade of a chef's knife and salt. All set aside.

Then I rinsed and drained the samphire and set aside in a bowl. If you cant get samphire then I would go for something like wild rocket or baby spinach. The rocket will change the taste of it all but I reckon it would be a good variation.

Next came the assembly of the Bruschetta:

A drizzle of virgin olive oil on the bread; topping with the chopped tomatoes and then the garlic; more olive oil and then set aside.

Pre-heat the oven to 200C (180C fan) or Gas 6.

Once I had my mise en place for the vegetables; had set aside the 50g of butter; and had a quantity of olive oil to hand, I was ready to prepare the sardinas. Make sure that your knife is sharp all the way to the tip! I neglected to do this and managed to tear the flesh as I encountered the fins underneath. Sardinas do tear easily. Insert the tip of the knife into the end of the gut and slice carefully towards the head stopping just before you get there. Use the knife or a finger to remove the guts and other bits inside and then set aside. Repeat for each fish and rinse them all individually. Make sure they are dry using kitchen towel.

Place the prepared bruschetta onto the middle shelf of the oven. They will want about 10 minutes or so, so measure to the number of batches of fish that you will fry.

Add a little olive oil to a saucepan and heat. When ready add sufficient sardinas not to crowd them( I fried 3 at a time in the pan I was using). Be careful, they spit! I overheated the oil and did not pat the fish dry before putting into the pan. I had hot oil everywhere and had to resort to lidding the pan.

Fry for 4 to 5 minutes each side - turn them only once and don't move them about otherswise. Then either set aside on a warm plate or place in oven. I put mine in the oven and so the first batch was probably overcooked a little (although we didn't notice it).

Repeat for each batch then, when finished, look wipe out the cooking pan and add the butter get it to temperature before adding the lemons and the samphire ( or the rocket or spinach if using instead) for a short while to heat up.

Turn off the heat.

Set 3 fish on each plate and top with the samphire and lemon.

Add a little of the melted butter if you wish.

Serve with the bruschetta.

¡Buen provecho!