… Tuscan Bread Salad
Saturday crica 12:15
Kenny – location – Tesco waiting at the checkout.
Gavin – location – in town.
Text – Gavin to Kenny:
I’m leaving town now … do you need me to get anything.
Call Kenny to Gavin:
Kenny: can you go to Morrisons and try and get me eight sardines … Tesco only had three … I need eight.
Gavin: No problem.
Kenny: Can you ask the fishmonger to butterfly them?
Gavin: Yes … what does that mean?
Kenny: They take the head of, gut them and open them up removing the bones, but the fillets stay together in one piece.
Gavin: ok.
Call ended.
Saturday circa 12:45
Location – Home.
Gavin: He wouldn’t butterfly them for me.
Kenny: Why?
Gavin: He said … “no I can’t do that mate … they’d fall apart” … He said he’d take the head of though.
Kenny: Fine …. They won’t fall apart. He just couldn’t be bothered. I’ll do it!
Gavin: Does that count as part of your fifteen minutes.
Kenny: … … …
I butterflied the sardines. The fishmonger had not taken the heads off. It took five minutes. Ten may be. But remember I do not do this for a living. And no it did not count against the fifteen minutes.
This meal was a delight to cook. I had to buy saffron as one of my pantry ingredients. I used some of it for the first time tonight. You make a little sauce type thing to cook the sardines on. The Sardines and pancetta go on top and in the oven. Your grill oven. Now as you know, I don’t have a grill oven. It went in the oven. Just the oven. But on a high heat. A very high heat.
The salad is great. You whizz up half of the stuff in the food processor and then the other half is chopped and makes the chunky part of the salad. Added to that is some big croutons made from fried ciabatta.
I finished the sardines off under the grill for a minute or so.
This meal is great. The sardines are lovely. The salad is great. Perfect actually. This has been one of my favorites.
Oh and by the way it was done in under fourteen minutes …
So Mr. fishmonger at Morrisions, Taunton – my sardines did not fall apart – I have photographic evidence. Consider yourself named and shamed.
How much: £TBC.
How long: Thirteen minutes and fifty two seconds.
Who with: Gavin.
