A HOME brimming with chaos, the aromas of fresh herbs and spices replaced by the smell of paint, beds covered with dust sheets, a bathroom minus a suite ... This has been my quandary these past few days. Amid the chaos of redecorating, food is mere sustenance, cooking the last thing I wish to delve into. So is it acceptable to go down the slippery slope of midweek takeaways?

I balance the madness against the convenience and reluctantly admit defeat to the lure of ready-made expediency.

Fortunately (or unfortunately) I grew up in a home where takeaways were not a norm, more a treat on infrequent days of indulgence, such as Karachi barbecue chicken tikka, a marinated leg of lamb from the Hyderabad colony or a cheeky 6am "nashta" of spicy potatoes with chickpeas and semolina halva mopped up with deep fired puri breads.

I have always been partial to eating seafood when I eat out, and there is something rather comforting about someone cooking fish well, especially the street food variety: a crunchy outside, a flaky inside, each mouthful filled with delight.

A firm favourite for us would always be Lahori fried fish – a delicacy that I only indulged in when I went to Lahore, obviously. A large sweet river fish called "rahu" is delicately dipped in rice water (leftover water used to boil rice), spiced gently with ajwain seeds, smothered in chickpea flour and fried alarmingly deeply. But in the end, you would be presented with an aromatically crisp, hot, decadent result, placed without much fanfare on a piece of old newspaper with a slice of lemon.

So, only dire circumstances would lead my family to head away from regular home cooking, and sometimes I wish we had gone out more frequently, as the flavours, scents and scenes from those trips are embedded on my palate, in my memory and culinary senses.

After moving to the UK, working long hours in London in the days of my legal career left me with little energy to cook fresh food and I started ordering takeaways more often than I like to admit. I never found those meals very inspiring, whether it was a half-hearted attempt at Cantonese food, sweet Indian curries, unbalanced Thai or basic English fish and chips, with soggy skin and all.

None of these really hit the spot, and I wished that at least the very British fish and chips would make its mark. But alas, England failed to deliver. So when I moved to Scotland, I endeavoured to give this staple British takeaway one last try. Upon hearing stories of how the Scots Italian had introduced their crispy batters to coat the soggy, skinless fish of Scotland, there seemed to be some promise there.

Realising that fish suppers have a deeply devoted following here, I went on to discover more. I've found that not much can go wrong if you step inside most family owned, multi-generational chippies, with their long, Friday evening queues outside.

The quintessential fish supper is one takeaway I have no qualms about – I indulge willingly and without remorse. This last week, therefore, I was led to my local chip shop on more than one occasion. I delighted in those steamy paper parcels that fogged up the car windows, signalling the need to rush home before the food turns soggy. The first bite of a vinegar-laden chip and the last bite of the crunchy edge of the batter gets me every time. It's a rather heavenly experience I can’t explain to those who don’t know a Scottish fish supper.

Not feeling well-placed to write out a recipe for an Italian Scottish forte, I am instead sharing a recipe from my first book, for Lahori fried fish, Pakistan’s take on a fish supper. Next week, I hope to resume good old home-cooking – though a fish supper takeaway may well become a part of my my weekly regime.

Sumayya's Lahori fish in chickpea batter and ajwain seeds

(Serves 4-6)

Preparation 20 minutes. Cooking 10-15 minutes

Summer holidays spent with my cousins in Lahore were always a food adventure. This is a city that never stops eating, and one of the most authentic street meals from Lahore’s foodie hotspot is this lightly battered chickpea flour fish. The trick to a crispy coating is dipping the fish in rice water (that’s the starchy water that’s drained off after boiling rice) instead of tap water. An alternative is to mix a teaspoon of cornflour in tap water for a similar effect.

4-6 haddock fillets

juice of ½ lemon

½ tsp ground turmeric

1 tsp salt

100g/3½ oz/generous 1 cup gram flour

2 tbsp rice flour

1 tsp dry-roasted cumin seeds

½ tsp ajwain (carom seeds)

½ tsp red chilli flakes (or more if you like)

100ml/3½ fl oz/scant ½ cup rice water (made by boiling 1 tbsp of rice in 120ml/4 fl oz/½ cup water, straining and reserving the water, or 100ml/3½ fl oz/ scant ½ cup water mixed with 1 tsp cornflour/cornstarch)

50ml/2 fl oz/scant ¼ cup corn oil

Rub the fish with the lemon juice, turmeric and ½ teaspoon salt.

Mix the gram flour, rice flour, cumin, ajwain, red chilli flakes and remaining salt together in a bowl. Pour the rice water into another bowl. Dip the fish into the dry gram flour mix, then in the rice water and repeat again. Continue until all the pieces of fish are covered.

Heat the oil in shallow frying pan over a medium heat and fry the fish for 4-5 minutes on each side until cooked through with a crisp coating. Serve hot with lemon slices.

Kitchen secret

To get a really crisp coating, begin by patting the fish dry with kitchen paper to remove all the non-starchy moisture before dipping into the starch water. If your fish is a little smelly, rub some white vinegar on the fish then rinse under cold running water and pat dry with kitchen paper before coating.

Extracted from Summers Under The Tamarind Tree: Recipes And Memories From Pakistan by Sumayya Usmani (Frances Lincoln).