Monkfish for dinner
We were thinking about fish for dinner tonight, but The Princess of Tuff said, "but I don't want it fried". I remembered a monkfish recipe old friends showed me over 20 years ago. That is, I more or less remembered it, so let's call this a variation on the theme. Monkfish is really nice in stew-like concoctions because it keeps its texture really well. Here's how I made tonight's dinner:
You need:
some monkfish fillets (which are really the tail of the fish)
onions and shallots
tomatoes
tomato paste (small tin)
one small zucchini, in chunks
handful of wax beans
a few potatoes
a splash of beer
water or stock
plenty of fresh basil
Open a beer and begin drinking it. This dish tastes best if you enjoy a beer while you cook.
Preheat your oven to 350 f.
Saute the onions and shallots (I use one whole onion and a couple big shallots) in olive oil (I do the whole thing in a dutch oven) on medium heat until they begin to caramelize.
Add some potatoes - I used small red potatoes tonight, cut in big bite-sized chunks.
Stir it around for a couple minutes.
Add a splash of beer, just enough to deglaze the pan
Add everything else and stir it around
Add about 3 cups of water and stir it around again
Cover the dutch oven and place it in your preheated oven
Ignore it for about 40 minutes, then take it out and test a potato. The dish is ready when the potatoes are ready.
Serve in bowls with some nice crusty bread and a cold beer.
Feel the love.
Note: you can vary this as you please. Try frying up some button mushrooms in butter until they are a bit crispy and adding them at the very end. Try a celery root chopped into matchsticks and added with the potatoes. Invent your own love.
Enjoy
5 comments:
yum!
what time's dinner?
:)
john of info junk
I like monkfish but isn't it a bottom-feeder?
I believe monkfish is what they call an angler fish. It has a little dangly thingy on top of its head that attracts other fish....and when the little fish come over to much on the dangly thingy, the monkfish gobbles it down.
I think that for fish stew type dishes, it is perfect because it keeps a nice texture, and it has a lobster-like quality to the meat.
sounds really good. could you give me an approximate poundage?
really dumb ugly american question: Is there a such a thing as an imperial pound, like there is an imperial gallon? Do you get so many extra ounces, like you get an extra quart? Don't ask me why this question popped into my head. Expecially since it matters not, you being metric for thiry plus years now.
The fillets are really the tail section of the fish. Usually they are about a foot long (is that an imperial foot or an American foot?) and very meaty. I used two fillets cut up into good sized chunks - sort of big bitesized. I didn't pay any attention to the weight, but really, you can balance the proportions of stuff in this dish as you like.... I have no idea if there is an Imperial pound. You're messin with me, aren't you?
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