How to Prepare Monkfish Like a Pro

The Mighty Monkfish

Stuck, as I am, watching the rain (absolute stair rods as Paddington might say) batter the windows of the departure lounge in a Balkan airport, I have been afforded the opportunity to write a new blog. We’ve been in Montenegro for a week; a land of unbelievable beauty and whose people have provided us with a great welcome and lovely hospitality. As we always like to, we have sought out local cuisines and have had some incredible meals. The highlight being a place where we chose a fish from the selection which they then turned it into a starter which was kind of a truffled ceviche with loads of olive oil, then cooked the rest of it over a wood fire. It was then filleted at the table by an expert waiter, who then whisked the resting fish juices into olive oil and lemon juice to act as the sauce; a bit like the Basques do with their turbots. This got me thinking that I’ve tried a few different fishes on the Fire Cage and in the Big Green Egg. The aforementioned turbot is great, so is Bass, but I found skate wings are a bit too delicate to cook well. One of the best I have cooked over live fire is Monkfish. If you have seen one before it is filleted for the fishmonger’s block, you will know that they are pretty fearsome looking beasts, all head, of which most seems to be mouth filled with rows of pointed teeth. Polly saw a whole one up in Morrisons a few weeks ago and the lady at the fish counter was reluctant to pick it up, let alone vac-pack it. But pack it she did, and when Polly got home, she presented me with her prize and the words “do you think you can fillet that?”, to which my answer was “probably” without being entirely sure. Luckily, the internet again came to my rescue, and I found a number of resources to help me go about the job:

1. Sharpen your knife – the monkfish skin is pretty rubbery and tough. Use the thinnest and narrowest blade you have.
2. Remove the cheeks just under each eye – these are lovely and can be cooked a bit like scallops. They sit in a shallow depression in the skull so you can slide your knife underneath, following the bone to get them off.
3. Now make a cut in past the pectoral fins on each side to remove the head – you need a good bit of force to get through the cartilaginous backbone so be careful and keep your fingers out of the way.
4. Pull the dark skin off from head end to tail like you are pulling off a sock – hold the body with your left hand and grip the skin with a piece of kitchen paper to give better purchase. It comes away from the flesh easily but is more tightly attached to the backbone.
5. Now the fiddly bit. The flesh is covered with a thick layer of greyish, pinkish connective tissue which needs to be removed before cooking as it tightens and shrinks under the heat and becomes chewy and pretty inedible. If you have removed silver skin from a beef or lamb joint you can use the same sort of process; slide the tip of your knife under the membrane and, keeping the blade as flat as you can, slide the knife sideways until you have released some of the tough tissue. You can then trim this piece off and repeat the process until you have covered the whole tail section – be careful as it’s easy to end up with a bit more wastage than you might have wanted.

Now this monkfish was going to be for a special occasion, so I wanted to cook it whole and portion it up once it was done. Using butchers’ twine, I tied up the tail like a Sunday roast – this one was about 1.6kg – to try to keep it a more uniform shape which I thought would help it to cook a bit more evenly. I then put the whole thing in a vacuum bag along with thyme, rosemary, a couple of gently crushed garlic cloves, the juice of a lemon plus strips of its peel and a good pinch of salt. Vacuuming means the marinade flavours penetrate the flesh a bit more deeply, plus it helps to keep the shape. I left this in the fridge overnight.

The next day, I lit a mixture of charcoal and braai wood on my Fire Cage and let it burn down to embers. For this cook, I wanted to hang the fish over the fire as the monkfish is uniquely adapted to help with this endeavour; a butcher’s hook can be pushed through the thin end of the tail, through the backbone and out the other side. The spine of the fish is cartilage so does a great job of holding the fish where you want it. I pushed my Meater⁺ into the thick end, aiming for a temperature of 50°C, then just hung it from a chain over the embers. I had a bit of the marinade left over, so brushed this on at regular intervals with a brush made from rosemary fronds which is either an example of pure chefmanship, or a bit ostentatious depending on your viewpoint. Either way, it worked.

It took a while to get up to temperature – over an hour in fact – which if you are used to pan frying fish fillets in a matter of minutes seems like an age. I think this low and slow method works and we got a really juicy end product. I did, however, flash it for a minute or two on the plancha just to get a bit of colour on it, as it looked a little anaemic. Next time, I think I will experiment with more of a hot and fast method, hanging the fish nearer to the both the embers and the brasero in the hope of getting a bit more char. By the time it had rested, the internal temperature was up to 57°C which I think seemed about right – I certainly would not have wanted it cooked any more than that. To serve, I cut all the strings, and swept my knife along the backbone to remove both fillets – this is one of the joys of monkfish in that there are no ribs or pin bones that need to be removed. Each fillet was then sliced into chunks and served on a warmed dish with the last bit of the rosemary lemon marinade. It was delicious – the marinade seemed to have penetrated the flesh really well and imparted really good flavour. 

On reflection, I did end up adding a little additional salt to the dish as the chef’s treat I sampled before putting it up on the table told me it needed just a smidge more. Maybe next time, especially if it is such a big piece again, I will salt it for 12 hours, then marinade for another 12 before cooking. This dry brining concept does work and helps to ensure the salt gets all the way through the fish before cooking. If you want to try the dish and end up with a smaller fillet, you probably won’t need to. 

PS – sorry there are no photos. We’ve just been told there’s a 6 hour delay, so demand for internet bandwidth is colossal!