Serves 2

Takes about 40 minutes

This is a divine dish; the smooth, robust, creamy fish goes incredibly well with its spicy crusting, and with the sharp, fiery, sweet/sour sauce.

The fish:-

2 x 150g fillets of turbot, skin on

15 fresh curry leaves, finely chopped

½ tsp black onion seeds

1 tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp sea salt

The Goan spice mix:-

10 cloves

1 dstspn ground coriander

1½ tspns black peppercorns

2 black cardamoms, seeds taken out, pods discarded. If you can’t get black, green will do nicely

2 star anise

3 dried hot red chillis

2 tbspns white wine vinegar

1 tbspn caster sugar

1 tsp salt

The sauce:-

4 small shallots, finely chopped

½ tsp mild red chilli powder

2 large tomatoes, chopped

125mls Nage

125mls thin coconut milk

To serve:-

Steamed basmati rice for 2

Steamed spinach for 2

• To make the spice mix, dry roast the dry spice mix spices in a pan until they start to smell lovely. Blitz them in a liquidizer with the rest of the spice mix ingredients. Set aside

• To make the sauce, heat a dessert spoon of coconut or ground nut oil in a heavy bottomed saucepan and fry the chopped shallots over a medium heat till they’re soft, and are starting to go golden. Add the chilli powder and stir for a minute, then add the tomatoes and stir till they’ve disintegrated, and are starting to go quite dry. Turn the heat down low, and add the spice mix you’ve set aside, and cook slowly, stirring, till the oil is starting to separate from the mix. Add the nage and simmer for a few minutes, then bring the heat back up and add the coconut milk and simmer gently for five minutes. Season, and check the flavour; it should be quite fiery, with a sharp sweet/sour flavour. Sieve the sauce into a bowl, clean the pan, discarding the remaining contents, and return the sauce to the pan. Keep warm

• To cook the fish, rub it with the curry leaves, onion seeds, turmeric and salt and leave for 10 minutes. Then heat a dessert spoon of coconut oil in a frying pan and add the fish, skin side down. Fry for about 2 minutes, so the skin is nice and crisp, then turn it over, take the heat down a bit, and cook for another 3 minutes. Meanwhile, put neat piles of rice on two plates (we use those steel tower thingies, they’re open ended metal rings 7cm in diameter and 6cm tall), then place a piece of fish on each plate, add a neat pile of spinach, then pour a generous dollop of sauce neatly around, and serve