Hearty home-made fish dinner on a tight budget? Yes, it is possible!

Recently, I read about the living below a line challenge. The challenge is to feed your family by spending not more than £1 a day for 5 days. Why? To help put conservation around poverty into perspective. How the world views hunger, extreme poverty and issues related to poverty is an important conversation to have. For example, reading a hard hitting fact like this  one helped me understand  how bad the issue of global hunger really is – ‘Hunger kills more than aids, malaria and tuberculosis combined’.

Please do visit The Hunger Project website to read about the challenge ind detail. You can also donate, help fundraiser and do your bit to help end world hunger. World Hunger Day is on the 28th of May.

This recipe is basically to support some blogger friends who along with their families which includes their young children took up this tough challenge. But honestly if someone told me I could make a fish main in £1 I would laugh aloud and make them a cup of tea to help them feel normal again. But trust me on this one you really can make a very delicious side dish and serve it with a spicy rice main for 2 adults for 2 main meals.Yes it’s possible to be thrifty and yet feed your family for less without compromising on taste.

When my friend S told me the easy-peasy recipe I just had to buy myself a pack from my new fav supermarket.This is probably the easiest recipe for a side dish ever.

Total prep time :Under 10 minutes Serves:2 adults as a side for 2 main meals

Ingredients:

• Sprat Fish pack – contains about 20-25 fishes and costs around 90p to 95p
• Turmeric powder 1 tsp
• Red Chilli Powder -1.5tsp
• 2 small hot green chillies sliced in a slant
• Salt to taste
• a pinch of Asafoetida
• Oil – 2 tsp
• 4 tsp Colmans Mustard
• 1 tsp hot BBQ Mustard – don’t worry if you don’t have this just add half a teaspoon of paprika to 1 tsp of any mustard that you have lying around and mix half tsp of  BBQ sauce into this for a smoky flavour.

Recipe:

• Wash the fish well under tap water and handle gently as it’s a small delicate creature and needs some fawning over but hey not much fuss I tell ya! But its all worth it because even my hubby apprehension that this fish has loads of tiny bones were all gone as he clicked his fingers after the meal 🙂
• Heat a saucepan and  add 1sp oil ,add asafoetida and the turmeric powder and salt and then the washed Sprat fish
• Gently sautee them for about 1 minute or until you see the skin start to come off , don’t over do it as they need to cook with the mustard in the next step.

• Remove the fish into a clean bowl and in the same sauce on a very low flame add another tsp oil, both the mustards pastes, choped green chillies ,red chilli powder and then the fish.
• As it is a delicate fish it will cook quickly and as it does the big bone that runs lengthwise inside this tiny fish will be easy to remove and so you can get the head off to, I am not squeamish but the hubster is and refuses to eat the eyes but they are supposed to be packed with iron and fish itself is high on Omega 3 fatty acids, the good stuff your body needs.Mothers who breast feed and consume fish are said to help give the baby better eyesight which is due to the high content Omega 3 fatty acids.Not only that as this recipe contains turmeric it has a heap of health benefits especially the fact that it helps people struggling to cope with psoriasis. If anyone has seen that episode of The Food Hospital on Channel 4 where a young mother and her son struggled with psoriasis, one of the big changes that they did to their diet was add turmeric to even stuff like scrambled eggs. Please click here to read more about that particular episode.
• A word here about the Le Range Mesurier BBQ Mustard, it’s one of the few things I purchased at the Cake & Bake Show 2013 apart from the sweet stuff.I also got a jar of zesty lime mayo from the same brand , they had a super offer of 4 jars at a great price!
• I slant the green chillies slanted just because it looks posh 🙂
• Ok so I manage to remove most of the big middle bone with the heads and the fish cooks very easily in under 3 minutes.
• Add a small helping of very finely chopped coriander for garnish.
• Serve hot with steaming hot rice or khichadi ,click here for a posh khichadi recipe from one of my older posts.
• Do leave comments below and let me know what you thought of this recipe!

I am entering this dish into a wonderful linky challenge called £1 or less recipe challenge started by Michelle Rice who blogs at Utterly Scrummy , with so much fresh and yummy fish made into a delicious dish and served with plain steamed rice its a thrifty budget dream dish full of flavour and ready without too much of labouring in the kitchen.Do link up and help spread the good cheer around in times of gloom when many families are struggling to makes ends meet and feeding families with healthy food on a shoestring budget is a very real challenge for many.