Culinary Explorer
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Sardines on Toast
Created by Chef Thomas
Tinned sardines, lemon, and black pepper on properly toasted bread, grilled until the edges crisp. Ten minutes, a few good tins, and the kind of supper that costs almost nothing and tastes like you meant it.
A tin of sardines is a quiet triumph. It sits in the cupboard for months, asking nothing, and then one evening when the fridge is bare and you can't face the shops, it becomes exactly what you needed. This is that kind of supper.
Open the tin. The smell hits first: salt and oil and the sea. Mash the fish roughly with a fork, squeeze in some lemon, grind pepper over it with a heavy hand, and pile the whole lot onto good toast. Under the grill for a couple of minutes, just until the edges crisp and the kitchen smells of something honest and savoury. We're only making dinner.
I keep sardines in the cupboard the way other people keep emergency candles. They're there for the nights when cooking feels like too much but eating badly feels worse. A proper tin, packed in good olive oil, on a thick slab of toast with lemon and parsley: that's not a compromise. That's a meal I'd write down in the notebook. I have, in fact, more than once. The entry usually says something like: sardines, toast, Tuesday, raining. Good.
Ingredients
tinned sardines in olive oil
Quantity
2 tins (about 120g each)
sourdough or good white bread
Quantity
2 thick slices
lemon
Quantity
1
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| tinned sardines in olive oil | 2 tins (about 120g each) |
| sourdough or good white bread | 2 thick slices |
| lemon | 1 |
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