A very appetizing dish for the hot summer nights
ingredients for 4 servings (cost about 3€ pp)
- 12 large sardines, already boned
- 200 g bulgur
- 1 small onion
- 2 garlic cloves
- 2 large ripe tomatoes for sauce, peeled and cut in small pieces
- black pepper
- salt
- EV olive oil
- 8 green olives
- 8 black olives
- purslane
I know, I have already presented to you many dishes “for the hot summer nights” and maybe you find all this a little bit boring. But, here, in Athens, Greece, where we live, the summers are aggressive and long. Although our house is found at the hilly suburbs, where the temperature is more than 7 degrees lower than at the city centre, the need of cool and easy made dishes is important.
This dish can be partially or totally pre-prepared and “wait” for us in the fridge when we return home after a tiring work day.
We start from the sauce. We mince the garlic cloves and starting from cold pan we gently fry it in olive oil till golden. We add the tomato, a pinch of salt and we continue cooking for about 15 minutes. 2 minutes before cooking end we add the olives, pitted or not, as we like but not commercial pre-pitted ones. We check the salt, the acidity, we add black pepper and we keep aside.
Fresh sardines are great. We are lucky here in Greece as sardines are very very cheap (between 4 and 8 E per kilo). We tell our fishseller to bone the sardines or we do it ourselves, catching the sardine from the head and pulling it towards the tail, while keeping firmly the body with the other hand.
We cook the sardines for a few minutes, in the oven, if we already have it on, otherwise in a pan lightly greased with olive oil. We put the sardines in the sauce, in order to promote an aromatic exchange. We keep in fridge.
We mince the onion and we fry it in 2 tbsp of oil, taking care not to burn it. We add the bulgur and when it turns golden, we pour in it 500 ml water and a pinch of salt, we put the lid and we lower the temperature to very low. I cannot give you an exact amount of water needed, as there many varieties of bulgur, which require a different amount of liquid. Whole grain wheats require much more, it is better to check the bulgur every 2-3 minutes. So, we start with 500 ml and, if we need more, we add later.
When ready, we add more olive oil, stirring well, in order to make the bulgur grainy and prevent the creation of lumps. We also keep in fridge.
-Hi kids, how are you? Have you studied today?
– Yes mummy, but we are hungry!!!! You were late today!!!
– Don’t worry. The meal is ready. I am going to the garden to cut some fresh purslane, I fill a glass with wine, cos I had a hard day and in 5 minutes we are gonna eat. OK?
