Escabeche, Papas Arrugadas with 3 sauces and a bit of a party.

Saturday 3 September

As it was Mariannes birthday and Linda was being released from Hospital, I decided to do something, tasty, but quick and easy to concoct. I made the Moja and Salsa sauce on Friday night, that only left chopping the tomatoes, red peppers and shallots, the sardines and Papas to be made on Saturday, oh and the Aioli!,

Two of the sauces are the two from last weekend that I made to accompany the Cataplana, the other was my standard Aioli. I had bought some nice small potatoes at the market (called little Lindas). I also bought a kilo of sardines, I had hoped to get some of those nice small ones, but alas they had everything from shark to live fresh water crayfish (European not the Signal ones) so it was the large ones or nothing, this does have the plus of being easier to filet.

I had my Saturday matjes brötchen with a cup of coffee, had a chat with Lindas next door neighbour, went to the Turkish barber and set off to prepare the food.

I finished off the Salsa, washed and scrubbed the spuds, filleted the sardines, made the marinade, fried the sardine filets and set them in the marinade, all this while running into the living room to watch Saturday Kitchen . I next went out to pick up Linda from the hospital, got back set the spuds on to boil in plenty of salted water and made the Aioli. Job finished and hoped to catch up with TMS on radio 4 LW guess what? Rain stopped play, I ask you India and rain stops play, no footy, Linda sleeping on the sofa, what a useless Saturday afternoon! so I decided to write up my blog!

First I got all of the ingredients together.
1 Kg of sardines

2 shallots sliced into fine rings

3 cloves of garlic sliced finely
2 Bay leaves
1 red chilli de-seeded, white pith removed and thinly sliced

A few slices of bio-lemon zest
100ml of white wine vinegar
1 Tspn of sweetner (you can use sugar)
A small bunch of mixed herbs (I used rosemary, thyme, small leaf basil)
10 black pepper corns
Flour for dusting
S&P and a sprinkling of dried herbs for the seasoned flour.
Bunch of flat leaf parsley.
Water

Finely slice the shallots and add to the rest of the ingredients in the pan

Measure out 100ml of white wine vinegar (it doesn't have to be from Kühne)




The aromatic ingredients into the the pan with the vinegar

Boil the marinade

Switch off the heat, put the lid on and allow to infuse. When finished taste and adjust the strength by adding water.

Now gut the fish carefully, try to remove the roes whole, cut off the heads and fins, wash under running water, removing the scales (they come off easy, just rub them off).



Slit the de-headed filet down to the tail along the line of the belly opening!, Turn it over and press it firmly onto the work surface (this releases the bones from the flesh), turn over and ease the bones out by holding it onto the work surface skin side down and ease the
backbone from the tailend. Trim the filets scraping the belly flaps clean of residue and bones.

Note the roes, keep these and add to the dish!

The finished trimmed filet

Mix your flour, salt & pepper and mixed dried herbs.

Dust the filets and roes all over with the seasoned flour.

Heat some olive oil in a frying pan, fry skin down until golden brown, turn and fry for a few seconds (not too long or they will dry out).

Pour a little of the marinade into the base of a shallow dish.

Layer the sardine filets and pour more marinade between each layer.

Finish off with the fried roes and a few fine slices of lemon peel, chilli and parsley, sprinkle with a little extra virgin olive oil. Cover with cling film and allow to marinate for a few hours before serving.

I served this with Moja Verde and Salsa Roja, that I explained in the last post.

Four tomatoes, quartered.

Remove the seeds and inside (this removes some of the liquid)



The diced tomatoes, red pepper and shallot



Add the blitzed sauce.

The Finished Salsa Roja

Then I also made Aioli, my way!

I do mine in a pestle and mortar, this means that I only have this to wash afterwards.

you will require:

1 large clove of garlic (or 2 smaller ones)

1/2 teaspoon of course sea salt

1 large free range egg yolk

150ml of lemon oil (self made a la Linda)

150ml of EVOO

A good splodge of dejon mustard

A sqeeze of lemon juice.(if needed)

Couple of twists of fresh groung black peper

Crush the garlic with the course sea salt into a pulp

Add the egg yolk and mix well together

Start adding in the olive oil (or half olive and half vegetableoil if you're on a diet), drop wise at first then into a trickle.
I used 50% pure olive oil and 50% of Lindas lemon infused olive oil

Add the mustard and the lemon juice (this will slacken the Aioli)

The finished sauce here you can adjust the seasoning, I added a bit of cracked pepper

I am not going to tell you how to boil potatoes, enough to say I used 1kg "kleine Linda", scrubbed, cooked in loads of salt, when done pour off all but 1cm of water and boil vigorously over a high heat until all of the water evaporates, they you go, wrinkly spuds.

No one was expecting Linda to turn up, in fact most thought that she was still in Hospital. She had said that she would only go for an hour (get the grub and run) but lasted the course). We had a nice evening with Marianne, Martin with lots of old friends and met some new ones as well! We had a great slide show (very professional Marianne, I must say) of Mariannes trip to Southern Africa last year. (again hee hee)