Loading ...From the days of the Moors in the Iberian Peninsula – Food Culture
By: Habeeb Salloum/Arab America Contributing Writer
While driving through the Algarve region of Portugal with my family, I stopped at a small restaurant in Albufeira. The city’s unmistakable Moorish imprint from the 500 years of Arab rule in Algarve was evident. Its Castelo de Almoàda, with its traces of Moorish architecture along with the surrounding lush countryside-first developed by the Moors; the whitewashed houses with their colored tiles edging narrow winding streets with Arab arches and domed churches topped by eastern type cupolas typified this one of the last Moorish bastions until its fall in 1249 A.D.
The owner of the restaurant realized us as tourists enamored with history. When I asked him whether the city’s Moorish past still meant anything to the people of this coastal town, he immediately pointed to sardinhas do Algarve on the menu and told us that it was not just in the visual remnants of Albufeira that one could see the Moorish past but could taste it in this dish.
Sardine Rolls – Sardinhas do Algarve
Makes 20 rolls
4 cans (3.75 oz each) sardines in oil
1/4 cup black olives, finely chopped
1 large tomato, finely chopped
2 tablespoons very finely chopped coriander leaves (cilantro)
1 tablespoon very finely chopped hot pepper
2 tablespoons lemon juice
1 teaspoon salt
1/2 teaspoon black pepper
10 sheets filo dough
Drain the sardines, but reserve the oil, remove bones, then place in a mixing bowl and mash. Add the remaining ingredients except the filo dough and thoroughly mix.
Cut each sheet of filo dough into two pieces, and brush with the reserved oil, then place 1 heaping tablespoon of the sardine mixture on each half sheet of dough and roll tucking in the ends.
Preheat oven to 350°F.
Place the rolls on a well-greased pan and brush with the remaining sardine oil (add more oil if necessary), then bake for 20 minutes, or until golden.
Serve hot or cold.
