Coca of sardines. St. John’s recipe

How to prepare a sardine cake.

Coca is a typical dish almost all the regions bathed by the Mediterranean Sea, Valencia, Catalonia, the Balearic Islands and even some areas of Aragon.

It is basically a recipe for dough on which they are placed and baked, mainly vegetables, although you can add some type of meat or fish.

We could say, saving the distances, that it is the Spanish pizza dough , with the most obvious difference that it never carries cheese.

There are many varieties of cocas, but perhaps the most typical is trempó, based on tomato, green pepper and onion . Today’s is a variation of this coca with the addition of sardines.

As in the case of the Galician empanada , a filling made with tomatoes, bell peppers and onions, it is a vice with some sardines, and in the case of this coca with sardines it was a success.

As you will see, it is a super healthy recipe since we bake the raw ingredients with practically no fat apart from our own. I am sure you will like this recipe and you will be encouraged to prepare your own sardine cocas.

It also serves as a base recipe for a multitude of variants, with spinach, with roasted peppers, with aubergines … endless options that I personally am looking forward to trying.

Preparation of the coca and sardine dough

1. We start with the dough. We put in a bowl all the ingredients, the flour, the oil, the beer and the salt.
2. With a wooden spoon, stir well until it is no longer possible and begin to integrate with your hands.
3. We pass the dough to a work surface and knead until we form a well-integrated dough. Let it rest for 15 minutes.
4. For the filling we need to clean the sardines of viscera and scales and proceed to fillet them, unless your fishmonger is encouraged to prepare them for you.
5. If this is not the case and we have to remove the central spine ourselves, we will do the following. First we remove the head and the tip of the tail.
6. With the tip of the knife we ​​open the belly to the end, to the tail. We pass the thumb along the spine separating it from its meat on one side and repeat the operation on the other side of the spine. So we can easily remove it.
7. We pass water to each filetito and reserve on kitchen paper. We wash the pepper and cut it into small pieces. We reserve.

Preparation of coca from sardines of San Juan

1. Peel the onion and cut into julienne strips. We wash the tomatoes and cut into small blocks. We reserve.
2. In a bowl we mix the onion, the pepper, the tomato, the olive oil and a pinch of salt. We mix everything well.
3. For the final assembly, we spread the dough on a floured work surface with the help of a rolling pin. We have to make the dough as thin as possible.
4. We pass the dough to the baking tray and place it on baking paper. We make a border around the perimeter of the dough to prevent the liquid that is generated in the cooking from escaping. We put the raw vegetables on the dough distributing them over the entire surface.
5. We cut each of the sardines into two loins, salt them and place them skin-side up, distributed on top of the vegetables.
6. With the oven preheated to 180º C we bake the coke with heat just below for 40 minutes. After this time we continue for 10 more minutes with heat above and below.
7. As each oven is a world, it is important that we keep an eye on the coca at all times. In this way we will avoid burning or leaving us raw, modifying the times a few minutes up or down.

Here you have one of the most famous cocas in the Spanish Levante. Take advantage of the sardine season, they are very cheap and delicious.

Tips for a yummy coke

• Sardines are a blue fish, closely related to anchovies and herrings, which are tasty and aromatic meat.
• They are at their best in the summer months. It is at this time when they contain more of their healthy fat, in addition to aroma and flavor. Its contribution of vitamins A and D are among the highest in fish.
• As an addition to its many preparation options, in salad , grilled, roasted , fried, in vinaigrette , pickled, Sicilian , stewed, stewed …
• The peculiarity of this dough is that it does not have butter or yeast, which is the usual thing in a coca shake . In this case, it is prepared with beer that acts as a light ferment and gives it its particular flavor.
• There will be a super thin and very crisp dough, ideal to drink at the moment. Although it is the type of dough that will resist perfectly from one day to the next, if you do not finish it before.
• Be sure to enjoy all the recipes for fish and seafood that we have on the blog.