Pilchard Rice

Bikini - Here is the illustrated recipe and cooking instructions for a dinner you can cook up when you’ve run out of ideas - or you can’t be bothered to go out shopping for any fresh ingredients - or the shops have closed and you’ve not got a lot in your fridge. It is a delicious “comfort food” dish that is the sort of thing we in the Route79 household prepare when there’s nothing else to cook out in the house - except for the most basic of ingredients and a tactical tin of sardines! And I am calling it “Pilchard Recipe”.

Here goes:

What you need is a couple of onions, a couple of potatoes and a tin of sardines (pilchards - same thing) - but make sure you get the tomato version - not the “brine” version! You also need to have access to the basic set of spices:


Place the nearly-full cup of rice (basmati) into a sieve and leave to rinse under a cold running tap for a few minutes. Then drain over the measuring cup. (You can peel the onions and potatoes whilst the rice is rinsing.)

Recipe
OK - so having peeled the onion and potatoes - then open up the sardine tin and empty it into a deep dish - all the fish and juices - just pour it all out. Then take each piece of fish from the dish with a fork and a knife and place it onto plate - and slit it carefully into two - in order to remove the bone. Discard the bones in the original can.

(Some people like to leave the bone in - it is very delicate is very edible as a good source of calcium - but I don’t personally like the texture.)