Sardines with tomatoes, olives, celery and leek

This dish, like my last similar recipe, is inspired by Mediterranean cooking in Sicily, Calabria (and Greece). Magna Graecia indeed! This time the recipe uses mammoth green olives which I was given as a present, a leek I needed to cook and the fish component was comprised of fresh filleted sardines. This week’s heat delayed my cooking but now that the cool has come (along with rain, thunder, lightning and hail) I can get on with it. I doubled the tomatoes in this recipe as the addition of the leek required this.  While cooking I also added gradually about a cup of water to keep the consistency as I wanted it.

Last time I cooked the earlier variant of the recipe I said I felt like I was in Greece. My friend Letizia said she felt she was in her homeland when she read the recipe. What will she think this time? Despite the green olives I still feel that I am in Greece (or Magna Graecia) and indeed wonder if I will ever get to Sicily or even Greece again.  

Ingredients

Olive oil

2 stalks celery including leaves

1 leek

3 cloves garlic crushed

2 cans (400 gr) diced tomatoes

10 mammoth green olives

3-4 tbs chopped fresh basil

1 tbs capers

400 gr fresh filleted sardines

1 cup water

Mode

Heat the oil in a pan large enough to simmer all the ingredients

Chop the celery

Finely slice leek

Crush the garlic

Lightly fry the garlic, celery and leek

Add the tomatoes and olives and stir occasionally

Chop basil and add it and capers

Turn down heat and simmer for about 5 minutes

While cooking add water as needed for consistency

Add the sardines and stir to cover the fish

Cover and simmer for 15-20 minutes