A humble dish: Sprats in the oven with garlic and tomato accompanied by a beetroot salad

As I might have told you before, my family and myself – to the extent possible - are fish lovers. I think the correct nutritional choice is to avoid meat and dairy products as much as possible and devote yourself to fish, various fruits of the sea and vegetables. In my family we try to follow this pattern of life as much as possible which if accompanied by the basis of Mediterranean diet which is the genuine olive oil, then I think you have tried your best for a healthy nutrition.

Onto our recipe now:

For my fish: I bought 2kgr of sprats, a couple of nice and mature tomatoes cut in slices, 3 chopped garlic gloves, as much oregano as you like – I used 2-3 handfuls, 1 glass of vegetables’ broth, a light sauce of 2 lemons and ½ cup of oil, salt and pepper

For my beetroot salad: As many as you like, I bought about 1 kgr, boiled water, salt. For the light sauce: olive oil and wine vinegar, salt.

Post cleaning my fishes well, I spread them on my baking tray and added salt, pepper, garlic and oregano. I then added the broth, so that it nearly covered my fish. I also added the light sauce and the tomatoes (with a pinch of salt). The rationale is that the fishes are firstly boiled in this nice broth inside the oven and then little by little they are roasted. Thus, they become juicy in the inside and kind of crispy on the outside. As they become actually dried out with this type of baking, when you are about to eat them you can add a little oil and lemon if you want them to be more vivid.

Now, on to the preparation of the beetroots: I divided the root from the rest of the vegetables as they need different boiling times and you need to peel off the skin from the roots, once boiled, as they have remainders of dirt. The vegetables have a boiling time of 10-15min and the roots 15-20min, both in medium heat. Once ready I cut them into pieces and add salt, wine vinegar, olive oil and a little juice from the water that I boiled the vegetables in.

Enjoy!