Category Archives: Cold savoury

Sardine rillettes

Finely dice an onion: very very finely. Teeny tiny pieces.

From two 90g tins of sardines in oil, take out the sardines . Open them carefully along their backs and take out the backbones and any other bones you can see.

Put them in a bowl and mash them up with a fork, add the onion, and the zest and juice of one lemon.

Season and serve on toast.

Jack Monroe: Tin Can Cook, page 112. She says to keep the oil from the sardines, but doesn’t say what to do with it…

If you only have sardines in tomato sauce, those are good mashed up and spread on toast, and you can do the same trick with adding finely diced raw onion to give them a bit of pizazz.

Lentil salad

  • 250g dried Puy or green lentil, rinsed
  • juice ½ lime and juice ½ lemon
  • one tablespoon white wine or cider vinegar
  • one red onion thinly sliced into rings
  • two tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
  • one teaspoon ground cumin
  • a small garlic clove crushed
  • two tablespoons  mango chutney
  • handful of coriander roughly chopped
  • 250g cherry tomatoes halved
  • 85g rocket or baby spinach (rocket is better – if you use spinach teare the leaves into bite-sized pieces)
  • Set the lentils cooking following the instructions on the packet.
  • Meanwhile, mix the citrus juices, vinegar and a pinch of salt in a salad bowl, then toss in the onion rings – after a few mins they will soften and turn pink. Whisk together the oil, cumin, garlic and chutney, then toss into the onions with the cooled lentils, coriander, tomatoes, spinach and plenty of seasoning.
  • Drain the lentils, rinse well and drain thoroughly. This should cool them down, but if not leave to cool before adding to the mixture.

From the BBC Good Food website.

Cuchumba

This is the salad that we always had alongside curries when I was a girl, but I was in my fifties before I saw the word written down.

Chop up tomatoes and onions. Mix with lemon juice and plenty of salt.

It sounds vile, but somehow all the harsh ingredients mellow each other.