Sardine salad with cheese croquettes

While browsing a Romanian cookbook, I came across some cheese croquettes that I wanted to make for a while now, but completely forgot about them.

Since we wanted to eat these cheese croquettes for lunch, I wanted something light to accompany them. Looking though my pantry, I discovered that I have an impressive stock of sardine and tuna cans. Like so, I thought I’d make a salad with sardines, the cheese croquettes, and add whatever else I had in the pantry.

One of our favorite combinations, when it comes to fish-based salads is a mix of corn, red onions, green salad, olives, beans and some kind of nuts. For this salad, I added red kidney beans, some baby corn that was laying in my fridge for a while, olives stuffed with almonds, half a red onion and a few walnuts.

I didn’t bother to make a dressing for the salad. Just add lemon juice, salt and pepper, and I promise that it’s more than enough. The cheese croquettes are an interesting element that makes this salad unique. I used a special Romanian cheese called “cascaval” to make them. They are crunchy on the outside and filled with melted cheese. That is why I recommend eating the salad with the freshly fried, warm cheese croquettes.

Here’s how to make it:

Ingredients

For the cheese croquettes

125 g cascaval cheese (or mozzarella, the firm type)

50 g flour

35 g butter

60 ml milk

1 egg

Oil for frying

100 g fine dried breadcrumbs

Salt and pepper

Other salad ingredients

One can of sardines

½ red onion

10 olives

One can of red kidney beans

½ jar of pickled baby corn

A few walnuts

Green salad leaves

Red pepper flakes

1 lemon

Salt and pepper

Directions

1. Sift the flour and mix it with the butter at room temperature and the milk.
2. Add the grated cheese to the mixture, along with salt and pepper to taste.
3. Using your hands, shape the croquette balls. They should be about the size of a walnut.
4. Roll the croquettes in the flour, then the egg and finally in the dried breadcrumbs.
5. In a medium saucepan, heat enough oil so that it will cover the croquettes completely.
6. Fry the cheese croquettes until golden and drain on paper towels to remove the excess oil.
7. In a salad bowl, add some whole green salad leaves, then the red kidney beans, the chopped red onion, the olives cut in half, the sardines, the baby corn, the walnuts and the cheese croquettes. You can also add a few lemon slices on top.
8. Drizzle lemon juice over the salad and sprinkle red pepper flakes, plus salt and pepper to taste.

Enjoy!!!