Nigel Slater’s recipe for potatoes, onions and sardines | Food

Preheat the oven to 200C/gas mark 6. Scrub 650g of large, floury potatoes, then thinly slice them. Put them in a mixing bowl, pour in 4 tbsp of olive oil and season with salt and ground black pepper. Peel and thinly slice a medium-sized onion and mix with the potatoes.

Pull the leaves from 2 bushy sprigs of rosemary, roughly chop and add to the potatoes and onion, then toss everything together to coat the slices evenly. Place the potatoes on a baking sheet in a single layer (don’t worry if they slightly overlap), then pour over the oil and seasonings from the bowl.

Bake for about 35-40 minutes or until the potatoes are toasted and pale gold in colour. Check they are tender and remove from the oven.

Roughly chop a small handful of dill or fennel fronds and put them in a bowl. Open a 100g tin of small sardines and put them, minus their oil, in with the dill. Add 2 tsp of freshly squeezed lemon juice and a 1/2 tsp of ground paprika.

Put the potatoes and onion on a serving dish, then add the sardines. Serves 2

I like to serve this as a light supper with a side dish of leafy green vegetables. Cavolo nero or savoy cabbage, shredded and tossed in hot oil with a little chilli paste, works well.

The sardines I tend to like best for this are the small Spanish variety in olive oil. You can also substitute pickled anchovies. I often use the small silver fillets from the deli counter, patting them dry with kitchen paper first to remove their marinade.

If you are looking for an alternative to sardines, try crumbling feta cheese over the potatoes as soon as they come from the oven.

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