Sardines

I feel that my blog has been lacking in talk of food recently. This is a subject very dear to my heart, or more accurately, my stomach.

Today I am thinking about sardines. I bought a little pile of them, fresh in the supermarket this weekend for just over €2 a kilo. My economical heart dances a jig of joy at such prices, and my creative juices ooze at the idea of searching out more elaborate ways of cooking them than just chucking them on the barbeque. Barbeques are out today as the weather is cloudy and not conducive to thoughts of al fresco eating.

Cue Google and umpteen ideas on bringing the humble sardine to the peaks of saliverous ecstacy. One recipe I found, on the BBC has them basted with a sauce of redcurrant jelly, lemon rind and medium sherry under the grill or on the barbeque. Another, from allrecipes.com has them fried in olive oil then removed while you fry some garlic, pour wine and wine vinegar into the pan, reduce it by half, then pour it over the fish and let it marinate for an hour, to be served with mint leaves.

Simply scrumptious ideas there.

Just one word about supermarket shopping. I know I should be frequenting local markets and setting out at dawn to meet boats coming in with the night's catch, but anyone who has tried shopping in multiple establishments with young boys will empathise with my targetted approach of in and out as quickly as possible in as few places as possible, with as comprehensive a list as possible. The alternative is ending the morning like a mangled piece of old rag. Long live the supermarket!