[Cooking] Monkfish, Chorizo, Romesco Sauce, Couscous

[karohemd]

They had some reasonable looking monkfish at the fishmonger's so I picked up a piece. I filleted it, cut the fillets into chunks and marinaded them in pimenton and olive oil for a while. While the fish was marinading I made a sort of romesco sauce from a red pepper and some cherry tomatoes cooked down in olive oil with tomato paste, pimenton, garlic and dried herbs, seasoned with salt and pepper and then blitzed with a stick blender.
For the fish, I sliced two small cooking chorizos and fried those in a dry pan over medium heat until crispy and the fat had rendered. I removed the chorizo and then fried the fish in the rendered fat until browned on all sides and moved the pan to a low oven to finish for a few minutes.
In the meantime I steamed some broccoli florets and cooked the couscous with vegetable stock, olive oil and lemon juice.
When the fish was done I set it aside on a warm plate to rest while mixing the pan juices into the sauce. I then plated the fish on the couscous, drizzled the sauce over and around it and added fried chorizo slices. After I'd taken the photo I realised I'd forgotten to add the broccoli. Never mind.

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Comments

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Yay! That looks great!

How tricky is it to fillet a monkfish? I'm usually a bit wary of fish with bones still in them.

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Thank you! It tasted great, too. :o)

Dead easy, actually, as you just have that central bone plate so you only need a sharp knife and cut along as close to that bone as possible. The bone is quite straight and smooth so it's a lot easier than filleting other fish and you can do it easily with a normal knife and don't need one with a flexible blade.
Have a look at this video (http://youtu.be/eH_X-Zdqx74) (from 2:00 in, my piece was already prepped to that point).

[bateleur.livejournal.com]

Ooh, that looks really easy! :-)

[karohemd.livejournal.com]

Just not your everyday fish. My 500g tail was a tenner but I needed a treat. :o)