Boulettes de sardines (sardine fishcakes)

Rustle up these spicy sardine fishcakes for lunch. Easy to make, they take under 30 minutes from prep to plate and pair well with a crisp salad

Ingredients

• 500 g sardine fillets
• 1 medium tomato, grated (optional)
• 1 tbsp chopped parsley
• 1 tbsp chopped coriander
• 70 g semolina or flour, for dusting
• 100 ml oil, for frying
• salad, to serve (optional)
• 6 garlic cloves, roughly chopped
• 1 small red chilli, deseeded and roughly chopped
• 1 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp paprika
• 0.5 tsp cayenne pepper
• 2 tbsp extra virgin olive oil

Steps

1. Using a pestle and mortar, grind all the ingredients for the dersa to a rough paste.
2. Chop the sardine fillets into small chunks and tip into a large bowl. Add the tomato, if using, herbs, the dersa and ¼ tsp each sea salt and black pepper, and mix well. The mixture will be quite wet.
3. Shape the mixture into small fishcakes (about 50g each) and dust generously in the semolina or flour. Heat the oil in a non-stick frying pan over a medium-high heat, then fry the fishcakes on both sides for around 3 mins until golden brown. Serve two or three fishcakes per person with salad, if you like.