
Sure, it’s more fancy than sardines on toast. The dish is based on a recipe from The Sydney Broadsheet cookbook published by the Broadsheet City Guide. I have both the Sydney and Melbourne cookbooks which are. full of excellent cafe and restaurant meals – tasty, complex, and capable for home cooks.
I love sardines. Healthy and sustainable seafood. And on this occasion, available at the old price of $7 per kilo. And by now I know how to prep sardines. Really.

The original recipe had the butterflied sardines stuffed with a coriander and almond meal pesto. I made a basil and pine nut pesto (garlic, no cheese).
The base is puff pastry topped with a beetroot relish, and I’ve made a similar recipe before. Here’s the cookbook version.
Beetroot Relish
60ml olive oil (recipe says 80ml but it was too oily at the end)
1/2 brown onion, finely diced
3 garlic cloves< finely diced
1 long green chilli, chopped (not sure how this is different from “finely diced”)
2 beetroots, peeled and grated (I used baked beetroot, and realised later that it probably meant raw beetroot)
2 tbsp dark brown sugar
1 tbsp coriander seeds, lightly toasted.
Sea salt and freshly ground black pepper…

Is this the final hot sauce? Not sure yet! This one will blow your head off. It’s adapted from a recipe in Big Flavours of the Hot Sun by 

So, a week and a bit later, we ended up with one and a half bottles. It has a mildly funky taste and is excellent.