Sardines with a crunchy nut and watercress stuffing make a simple yet healthily balanced meal when served with spicy new potatoes and a salad. Sardines are a good buy – inexpensive, quick to cook and high in beneficial fish oils and vitamins. For speed, buy ready cleaned and scaled sardines.
Walnuts can be used instead of pecan nuts. * For Mediterranean-style stuffed sardines, make the stuffing with 100 g (3½ oz) fresh wholemeal breadcrumbs, the finely grated zest of 1 lemon, 50 g (1¾ oz) mixed stoned black and green olives, roughly chopped, 1 plum tomato, finely chopped, 1 tbsp chopped fresh basil, and salt and pepper to taste. Cook the baby new potatoes as in the main recipe, then toss with 1½ tbsp olive oil, 1 small red onion, finely chopped, and plenty of black pepper. * In the summer, these sardines are delicious cooked outdoors on a barbecue, in a special hinged fish grill.
Sardines are, strictly speaking, young pilchards, but the name is often used to describe the young of other fish such as sprats and herrings. Sardines contain useful amounts of iron, which is needed for red blood formation. A deficiency of iron in the diet leads to the development of anaemia. * Pecans provide generous amounts of vitamin E and are a rich source of essential fatty acids and polyunsaturated fats. * One of the reasons that the Mediterranean diet is thought to be so healthy is because olive oil, which is a good source of monounsaturated fat, is used for cooking rather than butter and other saturated fats.
B1, B6, B12, C, niacin, iron, selenium * folate, calcium, copper, potium, zinc * A, B2, E
This is fairly complicated recipe to use, given the very minor change in appeal that it achieves. I used the Mediterranean style stuffing suggested, it being summer, and found that the stuffing did not really affect the flavour of the fish. The stuffing was crunchy and pleasant but in no way amazing. In addition, it did not hold together well either, so it was more a crumbly filling than a stuffing. Overall, I think I could have basted the sardines in lemon and cayenne paper and grilled them and it would have been pretty much as good. The salad did not work all that well, for me, either but was acceptable. - 31 Jul 2015
Easy to make and a nice change - 27 May 2015