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John Dory fried in green spice paste

Atul Kochhar from Great Food Live
Atul Kochhar demonstrates how easy it is to make your own spice paste to add flavour and flair to simple fish fillets

John Dory fried in green spice paste

Method

1. For the fish: put the fish fillets in a shallow, non-metallic dish, sprinkle with the lemon juice and salt, and leave to marinate for 15 minutes.

2. For the green spice paste: put all the ingredients for the green spice paste in a blender or food processor and blend to make a fairly smooth paste.

3. Remove the fish from the marinade and pat dry with kitchen paper. Liberally coat the fish with the green spice paste, massaging it over the fillets with your fingers. Put on a plate and leave to marinate in the fridge for 40 minutes.

4. For the spinach: wash the spinach, drain well and cut into thin strips. Pat dry thoroughly with kitchen paper and set aside. Heat the oil for deep-frying in a deep pan or deep-fat fryer, to 180C.

5. Heat the vegetable oil for the fish in a shallow frying pan. Remove the excess paste from the fish, put the fillets, flesh-side down, in the pan and fry for 2 minutes. Turn over and fry skin-side down for 2-3 minutes or until just cooked.

6. Meanwhile, deep-fry the spinach in small batches for 30 seconds or so until crisp. Remove with a slotted spoon as it stops crackling, and drain on kitchen paper.

7. When the fish is cooked, remove the fillets from the pan and drain on kitchen paper. Serve on warm plates topped with the fried spinach and sprinkled with the chaat masala. Serve the John Dory with grain mustard mashed potatoes.

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Serves: 4

Prep: 20 min, plus 55 mins marinating time
Cook: 10 min

Ingredients

For the fish

4 John Dory fillets (each 150g)
2 tbsp lemon juice
1/2 tsp Salt
4 tbsp vegetable oil

For the green spice paste

50g mint leaves
50g coriander leaves
10g ginger root, peeled and finely chopped
2 fresh green chillies, stems removed
1 1/2 tsp ground fenugreek
2 tsp chaat masala
1 tsp red chilli powder
1/2 tsp Salt
2 tbsp gram flour