Kitchen island: Mark Hix's Barbados bites I also love the challenge of cooking on a small Caribbean island where there is a limited selection of local ingredients - like plantain and sweet potato. In fact, I find it more inspiring than challenging, as you have to be inventive with the delicious dishes you can cook up. This is what local restaurants there should be cooking, giving tourists a real taste of the island rather than simply catering to what they're used to from home. Serves 4-6 Remove them from the fat with the slotted spoon and drain on kitchen paper. f Blackened fish with fried banana (Jason Lowe) Blackened fish with fried banana Serves 4 Pumpkin fritters are a great way to use an excess of pumpkin as a dessert with ice-cream (Jason Lowe) Pumpkin fritters These are a great way to use an excess of pumpkin as a dessert with ice-cream. 500g peeled weight of sweet orange-fleshed pumpkin or butternut squash, cut into even-sized chunks 40g butter, softened 30g caster sugar A good pinch of salt ¼tsp vanilla essence ¼tsp powdered cinnamon 1 large egg, beaten 70g self-raising flour, sifted Vegetable or corn oil for deep frying To coat 50g caster sugar 2tsp ground cinnamon Cook the pumpkin in lightly salted water for about 15-20 minutes until tender, then drain and blend in a food processor, leaving to cool. Put all of the ingredients except the flour and oil in a food processor and blend briefly until smooth. Add the flour and blend again briefly, then transfer to a bowl. Drop teaspoons and tablespoons of the mixture into the oil, a few pieces at a time, turning them as they cook with a slotted spoon and fry until crisp and golden brown. Next, remove the fritters from the oil, drain on some kitchen paper briefly and transfer to a dish with the cinnamon-sugar mixture. Toss them around for a few moments until lightly coated. Serve hot. Mark tried Macaroni pie in Barbados and it lingered long in the memory (Jason Lowe) Macaroni pie Serves 6-8 200-250g shortcrust pastry, rolled to one-third of a cm thick 150g macaroni, cooked 300g mascarpone cheese 150g grated Cheddar plus another 20g to scatter on top 150ml double cream Salt and pepper