Calories in Fish Tikka

The recipe cuts 100 g of mackerel into 4 pieces, marinates them with 20 g of onion and spices, and grills them using 1 teaspoon of oil in all. Each piece is therefore 25 g of fish with a quarter teaspoon of oil. That is a small, bite-sized tikka. A restaurant portion is normally several larger chunks, often of a boneless white fish, brushed with butter as it comes off the skewer. One restaurant piece can easily be two of these, so the useful way to read 42 kcal is as the figure for every 25 g of fish on the skewer.

Protein supplies 54% of the energy, fat 32% and carbohydrate 13%. Few Indian dishes get more than half their energy from protein, and this one does because it is nearly all fish: the 5.7 g of protein comes from the mackerel, and the 1.5 g of fat from the fish and the little oil together. There is no batter, no gravy and almost no carbohydrate. It is the lightest of the 14 meat, fish and egg dishes in its group, though that is partly because the piece is small.

One piece is about 2% of a sedentary man's daily energy requirement and 3% of a woman's, so nobody eats just one. Three pieces come to 126 kcal and 17.1 g of protein, which is a strong starter or the protein part of a light meal. With a salad, mint chutney and one roti it becomes dinner without much more. Where it is served as a starter before a full meal of curry, naan and rice, it is the later courses that carry the calories. As a way of adding protein to a day, few dishes do it for less.

Because the piece is small, the per-piece figure can mislead: a restaurant plate may hold several times the 25 g of fish this number describes. Salt is the other thing to know. The marinade is salted, the chaat masala sprinkled over the top adds more, and a plateful adds up. People limiting salt for high blood pressure should ask their doctor or dietitian how grilled, marinated dishes fit, and can season home-made tikka more lightly.