This is a delicious recipe; the marinated fish fillets are sweet and spicey, the crust has a lovely warm, almost bready flavour, and the Pachadi is rich and fruity. it works very well indeed with Basmati Rice or Sourdough Chapatis. You probably won’t need all of the flavoured gram flour you make the crust out of; it can be used to make superb pancakes, just make up your usual favourite pancake batter using the gram flour instead of wheat flour, and cook a little more slowly than usual in a frying pan.

8 small fillets of Lemon Sole

The marinade:-

2 tspns salt

2 tbspns red chilli powder

juice of half a lemon

1 tbspn water

1 tspn sugar

2.5cm chunk of ginger, finely chopped

The Pachadi:-

2 tbspns coconut oil

1 tspn mustard seeds

10 curry leaves

1 red onion, finely sliced

1 tspn ground turmeric

½ tsp ground ginger

1 red and 1 green chilli, both slit lengthways and deseeded

1 large tomato, skinned, and cut into eight chunks

1 tbspn finely chopped fresh coriander leaves

250g Greek yoghurt

1 tspn salt

The crust:-

10 curry leaves

3 tbspns dry chickpeas

1 tbspn yellow split peas

½ tspn fennel seeds

1 tspn black peppercorns

1 dried chilli, finely chopped

• Pat the fish fillets dry on kitchen paper. Mix together all the marinade ingredients, and rub them all over the fillets. Set aside for 30 minutes

• Meanwhile, make the Pachadi. Heat the coconut oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan and add the mustard seeds. When they begin to crackle, add the curry leaves and onion, turn the heat down, and sauté gently till the onion is soft and translucent, but not coloured. Add the turmeric, ginger, chillies and tomato, and cook till the tomatoes are just starting to soften. Leave to cool, then add the coriander leaves, yoghurt and salt. Stir, then set aside

• To make the crust, put the curry leaves on a baking tray, and put into a very low oven until they go dry and crisp. Crush them lightly and set aside

• Into a large heavy based frying pan on a low heat, put the chickpeas, yellow split peas, fennel seeds and peppercorns and gently roast until they start to release their aroma. Put them into a liquidiser, and blitz to a quite fine powder. Allow to cool, then add the chopped dry chilli and crushed curry leaves

• Dust the fish fillets with the pea and curry leaf powder to form an even coating

• This is a good time to fry your chapatis, then bung them into the just-warm oven

• Heat a tablespoon of coconut oil in the frying pan and add the fillets, frying for 1 minute on either side. Place a neat heap of the Pachadi on each of four plates, carefully place 2 fillets on top of each heap, put one or two chapatis on each plate, sprinkle with a little chopped coriander and serve