Yes I know……it’s been too long since I’ve posted. Life in 2026 has thrown so many curve balls it’s unreal, and to be honest, I wouldn’t know where to start listing them all. Something for certain, no matter what has been thrown in my direction, food has remained my ‘go to’ place for relaxation & inner peace.

This dish is one of the best dishes I’ve made in recent times, hence the excitement of making sure I blog it.

Kept the tradition going (religious food even though I’m not) which was instilled by my amazing mum making sure we ate fish on Good Friday – well this is my take!

The amazing thing about this dish is that – no ground spices were used yet the flavours were heavenly….

Ingredients-
3 tbsp of sunflower oil
1 onion finely diced
2 garlic cloves diced
A small piece of ginger diced
2 green chillies diced
400ml tin of chickpeas
400ml tin of chopped tomatoes
400ml of vegetable stock
1 tsp of toasted cumin seeds
1 tsp of toasted fennel seeds
1 star anise
1 tsp of salt
400g of prawns
2 large sea bass fillets cut into large chunks (skin on)
Pinch of black pepper
Coriander leaves.
.
So simple to make.

Method –

Toast your cumin & fennel seeds in a hot pan for 90 seconds and set aside.

Heat the sunflower oil, when hot add the diced onions and gently fry them for about 5 minutes.

Add in the garlic, ginger and chillies again frying for 3 minutes.

Add in the toasted seeds, 1/2 of the chickpeas and all the chopped tomatoes.

Simmer for 3 minutes.

Add the vegetable stock and transfer to a blender.

Blitz this all up, this will give you a nice thick sauce.

Place back in the pan adding the star anise, salt and the rest of the chickpeas.

Simmer for 5 minutes giving it the odd stir. Again, this sauce will thicken even more so adding further depth of flavour.

Add the fish & prawns poaching in the thick sauce again for 5 minutes.

Remove and season with the black pepper and coriander leaves. I served mine with steamed basmati rice.

Thank you for reading if you’ve got this far ❤️