Have you ever wondered how to serve a fish meal to a hungry family when you only have one or two? Jesus managed to feed five thousand followers by the Sea of Galilee with two fish and five buns, but He used miracles. This is a recipe that does not involve cheating. It doesn’t exactly feed people either, but it makes a nice starter and leaves them happy. Use plaice, dabs, flounder, small pollack, bass, whiting, cod or similar.

Make an Indian batter by measuring about 50g of gram (chickpea) flour, which you can buy in the better supermarkets these days. Add a teaspoon of salt and a teaspoon of garam masala. Mix with enough cold water to make a batter the consistency of thick cream. Heat a pan of oil to frying temperature, which you can measure by dropping a small cube of bread in and if it goes nicely brown in 30 seconds its fine. The oil only needs to be a couple of cms deep.

Take your fish, skin and fillet it and cut into strips. Coat in the batter mix and drop in the hot oil one by one. Don’t over-do the quantity as they will stick together and cool the oil. Take them out when golden, and drain on kitchen paper. Wait a minute for the oil to get hot again then repeat the performance until you have a basket of Indian fish strips in a spicy batter. Serve with a scattering of chopped coriander leaf for a posh touch, and a bowl of mango chutney to dip. Scrummy. If you have made too much batter, you can make vegetable fritters and onion bhagees – its the same batter. (My own recipe)