Spiced Monkfish with Charred Courgette, Pickled Red Onion & Cumin Flatbread
Spiced Monkfish with Charred Courgette, Pickled Red Onion & Cumin Flatbread
Fish is a strange thing.
I say that with all of the best thoughts in the world and mean it only to apply to the eating of it, or should I say, to eat it. Or even more clear, those who eat it.
It seems to me that there are three kinds of fish people.
Those who love fish and, if they see it on a menu, will order it every time. This is the lovely Mr G, the fish section is always the very first place he looks on the rare occasion we go out to eat.
There are those who think fish is just ok, that would me.
I like to eat it on occasion, but probably not the first section of the menu my eye goes to.
And then there are those who make me so angry I could force feed them jars of off the bar stale pickled onions until they agree to submit, and breath!
Why this angry?
Maybe angry is a little bit extreme, maybe fed up is more on the mark.
This group of people aren’t fish haters per say, this set of individuals say things such as “Fish, it’s too fishy” when asked if they’d like salmon. Or maybe you hear them utter, “I tried it once and it tasted of fish”.
What is it about this group of people who seem to think that a food group shouldn’t actually taste of the food group it’s from?
Fish ‘haters’ (I say this with a very small ‘h’) seems to be under the same heading as those who always tell me not to eat meat, that they are vegan, gluten intolerant or don’t like to drink milk because they were once sick from drinking a pint from the fridge after spending the earlier part of the evening drinking vodka, lots of vodka.
To the first group of individuals, enjoy this dish as much as the lovely Mr G does each time I make it for him.
The second group, this is me, this dish is worth choosing from a menu if I saw it.
Last and very much least, the fish nay sayers, well quite frankly, I wouldn’t make it for them anyway.
Go on, give it a go and enjoy your sweet life.
Spiced Monkfish with Charred Courgette, Pickled Red Onion & Cumin Flatbread
Ready to eat
Serves 4
What You Need
Spiced Monkfish
800gm Monkfish Tail – Enough for 4 people – Cut into pieces
1 Large Onion – Peeled and roughly chopped
3 Garlic cloves – peeled
5cm Fresh Ginger – Peeled
1 Green Chilli
1 Bunch Fresh Coriander- Plus extra for garnish
Drizzle of vegetable oil
Marinade
300ml Thick Greek Natural Yoghurt
1 Tsp Rasel Hanout
1 Lemon, Juiced
2 Tsp Ground Cumin
2 Tsp Za’atar
1 Tin of Chopped Tomatoes
1 Tsp Garam Masala
2 Tsp Fenugreek
2 Tsp Tomato Puree
75ml Water
Charred Courgette
2 Large Courgettes
3 Tbsp Olive Oil
2 Tsp Dried Coriander
Pickled Red Onion
1 Medium Size Red Onion – Peeled and sliced as thinly as possible
1 Tsp Castor Sugar
200ml Red Wine vinegar
Cumin Flatbread
250ml Greek Yogurt
250g Self Raising Flour – Extra for rolling
1 Tsp Dried Cumin
How It’s Done
Spiced Monkfish
Place the onion, green chilli, garlic cloves, fresh coriander and ginger into a food processor and blitz until you’re left with a smooth paste.
Set the paste aside until needed.
Add all of the marinade ingredients to a large bowl and mix them together so that everything is really well combined.
Place the pieces of monkfish into the marinade making sure that the fish is completely submerged and covered.
Cover the bowl and set aside in the fridge for at least an hour.
Time To Cook
Once ready to cook the fish, add the drizzle of vegetable oil and the paste to a frying pan with sides, and cook on a low heat for 10 minutes.
Stir it often, so the paste doesn’t get any colour and doesn’t catch to burn at the bottom.
Once cooked, add all the spices, tinned tomatoes and tomato puree to the pan.
Remove the monkfish from the marinade but leave a lot of the marinade on the fish–See Tip Box
Place the remaining marinade into the pan with the rest of the tomato mixture and stir really well.
With the heat still on low, let it cook for 5 minutes, stirring a lot so it doesn’t stick or burn.
Meanwhile, heat a grill up, cover a grill pan with foil and place the monkfish under the hot grill.
Cook, only on one side, until the top of the fish is charred and blackened, but not burned.
Once the top of the fish is charred, transfer the fish pieces to sit on top pf the cooking sauce to continue cooking - See Tip Box
Let the sauce and fish cook very gently for approximately 10 minutes.
Once cooked, place some sauce on the bottom of a shallow bowl and sit the fish pieces on top.
To serve, add a few leaves of coriander.
Pickled Red Onion
Place the very thin sliced red onion into a small bowl and add the sugar and vinegar.
Mix it all up and set it aside until ready to serve.
Charred courgette and picked red onion
Charred Courgette
Wash, dry and cut the ends off the courgettes.
Cut the courgettes into slices about the thickness of a £1 coin.
Mix the oil and the dried coriander together and brush the mixture on all sides of the courgettes.
Heat up a hot griddle or flat pan and when nice and hot, place the courgettes, cut sides down, to cook.
Once the courgettes have grill marks on one side, soft and are nicely charred, turn them over and repeat the same process on the other side.
Serve hot or cold
Cumin Flatbread
Place the Greek yoghurt, flour and cumin into a bowl and bring the mixture together to form a soft dough.
Wrap the dough in cling film and set it aside until ready to cook, at least 20 minutes.
When ready to cook the flatbread, divide up into 4.
Dust the work surface with a little flour and roll out each of the separate dough balls – See Tip Box
Heat up a hot griddle or flat frying pan.
When hot, place one of the flatbreads into the dry pan or on the dry griddle. – See Tip Box
Leave the flatbread to cook, untouched, until one side is cooked, dry, and has brown patches. Turn it over and repeat the other side until cooked – See Tip Box
Place the cooked flatbreads on a plate, cover with foil and keep warm until serving.
Serve warm
Monkfish, firm with mild spicing.
Tip Box
Monkfish – 1) Make sure all of the fish is covered completely in the marinade.
2) When removing the monkfish from the marinade, don’t scrape any of the marinade off the fish. The marinade is the thing that will char under the grill.
3) When transferring the fish to the cooking sauce, make sure the fish sits on top of the sauce and doesn’t get submerged. The idea is to cook it slowly.
Flatbread- 1) This is an easy peasy recipe. There are two ways to cook them, firstly dry frying them as described earlier, or adding some butter to the hot pan and cooking the same way.
2) You’ll know when the flatbread is cooked because it will be crispy and brown on either sides, with some parts bubbled up.
3) Rolling out the flat bread – The flatbread will stretch a lot. Roll it out until almost as big as a dinner plate. If it breaks a little, it’s not too much of a worry, as long as the holes are only small. If the flatbread rips, just roll it up and start again
Tuck in
