At university my boyfriend is always looking for cheap and easy meals to make for himself, and a littl while ago we tried these. As always, Sainsbury's Basics offer basic quality food free from the premium cost of brands, and is easily recognisable from its simple orange-and-white packaging and (annoying) slogans like "Cleans, but no more promises", stating the simple nature of basics products. We found these in the frozen fish counter for 98p.

*Contents*
The cardboard box contains 4 x 100g frozen, battered fish portions that are each uniformly about 11cm by 6cm in size.

*Looking and cooking*
They dont look too appealing before cooking, little beige frozen squares that dont in any way resemble a fish and look like they've been stamped out exactly the same. However, they are still frozen so we have to give them a chance!

Stick them on a baking tray in an oven at gas mark 7 (220 degrees C) for about 20 minutes, turning them halfway through until they are crispy out the outside and piping hot all the way through

*Taste*
The fish portion is coated in a thick layer of batter which is crisp and brown on the outside, but soft and paler by the time you get to the centre. This leaves a thin little square of white, homogenized fish (the fish makes up just 52% of the portion) in the centre.

It tastes good to me, because I like batter more than fish! The batter is tasty, with a good amount of saltiness to it. The fish is mediocre quality, slightly dry and less fish-looking than a fish finger which at least has flakes and the occaisional grey bit, and so lets it down, but this is to be expected at such cheap prices.

The fish portions are very filling because of the large amount of batter so 2 is plenty per person with some vegetables and a small amount of potatoes.

*Sustainability*
The only fish used in the fish portions is MSC Certified Alaskan Pollock, which means that the Marine Stewardship Council have certified their source of fish as sustainable (i.e. unlike sources of cod in the past, the pollock is fished at a pace which prevents numbers from declining). This is good news! Especially as ethical food usually costs a premium.

*Nutrition information*
Per fish portion
Calories: 172
Protein: 12.0g
Carbohydrate: 16.2g
Fat (saturates): 6.6g (0.6g)
Salt: 0.71g

As with many pre-prepared meals, these portions are quite high in salt (a serving of 2 fish portions contains 24% of the maximum salt recommended in a day). The fat content is not as bad as some, though it is always tempting to eat fish with chips... but there is a fair bit of protein in there which is good.

*Value for money*
At 98p, these fish portions aren't as good value for a quick meal as some alternatives, such as readymeals like lasagne, spag bol and curries which can be bought at 3 for £2, which provide the whole meal and taste better. For fish they are very cheap, but the quality is just not very good and I would rather pay more and eat fish more occaisionally.

*Conclusion*
These are a cheapish meal which will probably do for children and university students! We thought they were an OK meal, but my boyfriend hasn't bought them since.