Lunch in the Sun

A grilled fish on the balcony day 

Grilled fish on the balcony under the shade of the now leafing grapevine

K grilled more than we could eat at one meal so we can have it as an accompaniment with spinach tomorrow and more salad the next day.

The fish is gutted but neither scaled nor filleted.  This way it doesn't stick to the grill and naturally traditional people insist that there is more flavour in the fish if it is left in its original state.  That means that hands must be used when eating and it gets messy and I always end up with oil spots somewhere on my shirt. 

The fish are easy to clean on the plate, just messy.  The side bones come away, the scales and skin slide off and the backbone is removed in one swoop.  We end up with a big bowl of heads, tails, scales and skin for the cats.

The fish is then dressed with 'salamoura',  oil and lemon juice, a little mustard and oregano.  The dressing is shaken up in a little jar which you will notice sitting on the table at the top of the photo.

We ate the fish with the dressing, a greek potato salad and a lettuce and rocket salad, all dressed with more lemon juice and olive oil. 

Red wine for me, white for the traditional boy. Red wine goes well with white fish, especially a rough, dry local wine which has not travelled more than half a kilometre.

The grapevine is sprouting all over the place which I am happy to see.  Vaso's son pruned it this year and so severely I wondered if it would produce any grape leaves at all.  I have trimmed all the ends of the grape vines which are galloping away and swaying over next doors road.  Now I must collect a bowl of young grape leaves to make stuffed vine leaves.  This before K comes along to spray some sort of blue dust all over it to stop the rot.