Sardines and rice

This is what I had for lunch yesterday. The North African combination of spice, dried fruit and toasted pine nuts is one I cannot get enough of at the moment.

1 onion, sliced
Olive oil
Handful raisins
Handful flat leaf parsley, chopped
Handful pine nuts
75 g Basmati rice
1 tin sardines
1 tsp harissa

Put a pan of water on to boil. Meanwhile, gently fry the onion in a tbsp or two of oil; they will be ready in the 15 or 20 minutes it takes to assemble the rest of the ingredients.

When the water is boiling, pour a ladleful of it on to the raisins in a small bowl. Tip the rice into the rest of the water, and boil for 10 minutes. (There is more on rice here.)

Toast the pine nuts in a dry pan over a low heat, stirring from time to time, and keeping watch so that they don't progress from toasted to burned.

Drain the rice. Add it to the onions. Drain the raisins, and stir them with the parsley and the pine nuts into the onion/rice mixture.

(I also stirred in harissa, even though my good Portuguese sardines, a brand called Queen of the Coast, came in a spicy tomato sauce.)

Stir in the sardines, breaking them up a little with the spoon. You may not need salt. Serve.