After a full morning and midday working in the garden we had a simple but tasty lunch. I had bought just over 300 g of sprats for 90 p yesterday evening and we grilled them.

In the UK, I have always thought you should clean fish unless they are tiny like whitebait. However I was surprised this summer in Portugal to see that sardines, squid and smaller fish were grilled uncleaned. When we had sardines that way the flesh seemed to separate from the inedible parts quite well.

However, we decided to be conservative. Cleaning sprats is easy with scissors. Just cut through most of the fish from the top behind the gills, almost all the way through. A little tug will also bring most of the innards with it too. To be sure do a second snip along the belly to the anus and remove any remaining guts. Cleaning is not onerous for 300 grams (3 people) but if you were doing this for 10 people it would be a bit of a drag.

Season with salt, pepper and a little oil. Grill for 5 minutes (3 minutes for the first side, 2 minutes for the second) and serve with lemon.