I’ve probably had more encounters with this dish courtesy of Kauai’s Chicken Caesar wrap via Virgin Active Claremont (yes, I sometimes go to gym to eat and not work out…), than in a stand alone salad, so I was quite looking forward to this challenge.

Something in this dish has always struck me as fishy, I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, but thought it awry. Turns out Mr. Ignorant here didn’t know that the base of the dressing is anchovies (which are fish people, fish!)… go figure.

Since I couldn’t acquire anchovies I bought sardines, a distant relative, about 50 gazillion times the size… so really using one sardine is the equivalent to a tin on small anchovies… lets just say initially I didn’t think to stop at one and decided that a tin of sardines would be better…

Though despite the error in my seemingly faultless logic the meal turned out okay and I realized just in time that unless I was going to turn into the incredible hulk, grinding up a tin of sardines in the mortar and pestle was a fruitless exercise and a one or two would suffice.

An interesting twist was that Jamie’s recipe called for the inclusion of bacon, so essentially this dish could be called ‘farm yard in a bowl’, though I’m not sure it is as catchy and would be as appetizing if presented in that manner.

It gets the 20 minute nod, and is a great ‘simple’ meal to whip up. We chose to enjoy it as a lunch, being a little heavier than a green/greek salad it also required an obligatory siesta, well not really… but one can wish right?