Quick Sardine Starter Salad

A super quick starter. All you need is a tin of sardines which is usually sitting in your pantry cupboard. If you need to rustle up something quick when unexpected guests show up, this is the perfect and easiest starter to make. You can have this as a salad as well, or just serve it with some toasted baguettes or crackers. 

Quick sardine starter salad

Ingredients:

1 tin of sardines

1 onion finely chopped

1 green chilly finely chopped

salt and pepper to taste

1/2 a lemon

fresh coriander leaves to garnish

Method:
Break up the sardines with a fork. Add in the rest of the ingredients, checking for seasoning. Serve up!

Middle Eastern Onion And Tomato Relish

This relish is eaten on the side almost like a chutney accompanying the main dish. It has a slight kick of spice to it, giving a dish that extra heat, as most middle eastern food isn't spicy at all. It is similar to the Indian kachumbar, without the cucumber, another difference is, its blitzed to a finer paste in the blender.

Middle Eastern Onion and Tomato Relish

Ingredients:
1/2 a small onion
2 cloves of garlic
2 large tomatoes
fresh coriander leaves
1 green chilli (deseeded)
salt to taste

Method:
Blend all the above ingredients together in a small blender or mixer till you get a fine (yet slightly coarse) paste. Serve fresh alongside any dish. Goes well with a meat and rice dish or even with kebabs.

Indian Kachumbar Salad (onion and tomato salsa)

In India, where I grew up, this was the only kind of salad that was ever served. Not everyone knew of the different kinds that are so common today like the caesar and waldorf salads etc. This salad was quick and easy to make, and consisted of basic pantry essentials that were always on hand. It goes great, served as an accompaniment to any curry and rice dish and gives it that fresh burst of flavour to liven up the palate.

Most recipes call for cucumber as one of the ingredients as well. In this recipe I haven't used any, as I sometimes prefer it more like the mexican salsa version.

Indian Kachumbar (onion and tomato salssa)

Ingredients:
1 onion chopped
1 tomato chopped
1 green chilly chopped finely
1/2 lime
fresh coriander leaves chopped fine

Method:
In a bowl, toss in the onion and tomato. You can cut the onion and tomato very fine if you like but in this case I have chose to leave them in bigger pieces. Finely chop the green chilly leaving the seeds intact, as the extra heat works nicely in this recipe.

Squeeze in half a lime. I prefer to buy the USA green key limes as they are seedless and have a lot more juice and slightly less tart than the really small green local indian ones. Season with just a dash of salt. You don't need too much as you already have lemon in the dish. Garnish with some freshly chopped coriander leaves and you are good to go..

You can increase the quantity of ingredients depending on the number of people you are cooking for. This particular dish was made for just two adults.
I would recommend you making this salad, as with most salads, just before serving as it would tend to go soggy if kept for too long. A trick you could use, is chop the ingredients in small separate bowls, except for the tomato (which you do last minute) and then just assemble them when dinner is ready.