I successfully hid the fish!  Or perhaps balanced the fishiness?  I have a long history of mild failure with sardines.  They are so healthy and yet I’ve been repulsing the people I live with since my college years.  This time Will liked it!  Probably because I hid them well.  And the flavors were well balanced.
Again, I was inspired by The Laws Of Cooking – And How to Break Them.   This time it was the Law of The Wedge Salad.  It is about balancing funky with fresh.

I loved the concept but I want my sardines to be easy.  There will be no deboning fresh sardines for an appetizer.  I wanted a quick healthy meal that I could pull together on a whim.  My requirements were: 

1. Use canned sardines in olive oil.
2. Be substantial enough to be a meal.

To give it some heft it needed a carbohydrate.  While I considered some sort of grain, I decided on bread because Will loves bread.   It had to be a simple white loaf.  It was already going to be healthy enough and I wanted something that wouldn’t compete or distract from the other flavors and textures.   I went with ciabatta.

I also felt it needed more texture to make up for softness of the canned sardines.  Additional vegetables would also boost the meal quality.  I looked up cucumbers in my Vegetarian Flavor Bible and decided on parsley and red onions.

Once the decisions were made, it was super easy and quick to assemble.  There was no cooking, unless you count putting bread under the broiler.  The hardest thing about this was finding sumac.  I hoped to find it in the bulk spice section of my co-op, but I had to go to Holy Land in the Global Market  and got a huge bag.

I prepped my toppings:
Chopped red onions and tossed with white wine vinegar and a little salt.
Sliced English cucumber
Fresh Italian flat parsley

Mixed Sumac into plain greek yogurt

Sliced ciabatta went under the broiler to get nice and toasty.
Then I added a tin of sardines in olive oil (I also got bone and skin on for another meal).  I made sure to dribble all the olive oil on the toast.  Put the fishy toasts back under the broiler. Don’t skip that step!   Then I just put it all together hiding the fish!

Bonus kitty picture:

Pigeon would like some sardine toast with yogurt.

Success!  Will even asked for them again.  This will now be a part of our regular quick dinners.

I didn’t think it could get better but it did.  Left in the fridge sumac yogurt was the most beautiful shade of purple.  The red onions turned a lovely pink from sitting in the vinegar.  Everything else was as good as new.  It took even less time!  Slice bread, top with fish, throw on the other stuff.   On another attempt I used brat buns (any soft roll would do) and it was a little less messy to eat.  Unfortunately I don’t have pictures of the even prettier version because it was late and dark and we were too hungry.  So you should make it for yourself and see.