Monkfish with Herb Crust and a Saffron Beurre Blanc, Batons of carrot and green beans, Roseval potatoes.
Nice to have a piece of fish after all the meatfest of the last few days, and we were lucky to find a whole monkfish tail on the bone half price in the reduced section at Sainsbury's.
If you watched Masterchef Professional and saw the chefs taking the dark membranes off the monkfish in the skills test, you will know what a right pain that is. And there is not the one membrane, oh no. They didn't say that under the dark membrane is another transparent one did they? And that has to come off as well. The de-membraning (and the filleting but the timewaster is the de-membraning) probably took as long as it did to cook the fish... but don't let that put you off, cooked well it is a beautiful pearly white fish, with a smooth meaty texture. But leaving the membranes on means you have to bite through that tough leathery skin to get to the lovely smooth fish, so persevere.
It was decided that a Raymond Blanc recipe from Cooking with Friends would form the basis for the recipe, he has a recipe for medallions of monkfish with mussels in a saffron sauce. No mussels unfortunately, but the saffrom beurre blanc, bolstered with a little stock made from the monkfish bone, was silky and delicious. The fish itself was browned lightly in a pan, then topped with a crumb of breadcrumbs, parsley, thyme and a little Rape Seed oil all blitzed in a minichopper, and grilled for 5 mins until the fish is cooked and the crumb is well browned.
The whole meal, including all the preparation, took approximately 40 minutes. So perfectly doable for a midweek special.
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