PICK A FINGER

To be honest I don’t like sardines or cabbage or beans or brown rice…I do like feta though. 

So this week’s Freshly Blogged ingredients was really a challenge for me – to cook something 

that I’d be happy to eat with ingredients I really don’t like. 

This was more determination than inspiration. But I think I succeeded…

I polished the plate after taking the photo.

If you agree, please vote for my recipe here!

Ingredients

Rice cake

¾ cup PnP Brown Rice

1l hot water

2 sachets Ina Paarman concentrated vegetable stock

1 cup chopped cabbage

½ cup chopped green beans

1 disk PnP Plain Feta Cheese, roughly crumbled

2/3 cup grated Emmentaler cheese

Sardine Pâté

1 sardine (from a can of Lucky Star Pilchards in tomato sauce)

40ml PnP Greek Style yoghurt

½ tbs Ina Paarman Lemon & Rosemary seasoning

Fish Fingers

4 sardines (from a can of Lucky Star Pilchards in tomato sauce)

80ml cake flour

2 tsp Robertson’s Garlic Salt

1 tsp Robertson’s White Pepper

1 disk PnP Plain Feta Cheese

1 medium egg

Garnish

PnP Cayenne pepper

Crumbled PnP Plain Feta Cheese

Instructions

Bring water to the boil, add the stock sachets then add the rice.

Let it simmer for 45 minutes.

In a food processor, blend all the pâté ingredients together until it resembles the smooth texture of a pâté. Scoop into a zip lock bag.

Next add all the fish finger ingredients to the food processor 

(it’s ok if there is still a little bit of leftovers from the pâté in the processor). 

Use the pulse function of the food processor – you don’t want to overdo it, 

you just want to cut up the fish and feta and get the egg to bind it all together.

If the mixture is still quite runny, add some more flour 

(egg & fish sizes differ so your mixture might be wetter / dryer than mine). 

Flatten out the mixture on a cutting board or on baking paper using a spatula.

Heat oil in a non-stick pan (medium to high heat).

Using a large (sharp) knife cut off 10cm x 2cm fingers one at a time. 

It’ll probably stick to the knife, then just allow it slide off the knife into the pan.

Once crispy on the bottom side, carefully turn them over. 

They only need to be turned once.

After the fish fingers are done, add the cabbage to the pan and flash fry for a couple of minutes 

then drain on paper towel.

Once the rice has cooked for 45 minutes, add the beans to the same pot and let it simmer for another 15 minutes.

Drain and return the rice & beans to the pot, also add the cabbage and feta cheese and set aside. 

Mix well and press the mixture into a cookie cutter or other object to form a “cake”.

The rules for this challenge prevented me from using the oven so I used a blowtorch to melt the 

emmentaler cheese over the rice cake but you can just pop it under the grill.

To assemble:

Cut open 1 corner of the zip lock bag and use it as a piping bag to pipe dollops of the pâté onto each fish finger. 

Garnish with crumbled feta.

Sprinkle cayenne pepper over the melted cheese top of the rice cake.

Disclaimer: For this recipe and for the upcoming challenges, I'm using and promoting PnP specific ingredients - it is a PnP competition after all! If, during the competition, I come across a PnP ingredient which I feel is inferior I will suggest an alternative in the recipe. But so far the ingredients have been great so I doubt that will be necessary!