Monkfish Skewers 4 Ways!
If you have ever seen a whole monkfish you would think it was something from a horror movie, but fishmongers generally sell them without the head and are sold as a monkfish tail. I am very fortunate because I have an excellent Dorset fishmonger who actually arrives in the village where I live once a week in his van packed with beautiful fresh fish. And when I said I wanted something to BBQ he presented me with a beautiful monkfish tail and I took it straight home and prepped it knowing I would have to eat some that day because monkfish is so delicious but I would also like to freeze some in.
Monk fish is easy to prepare because it basically has one big bone down the middle. So I started by washing the fish and then removing the skin. You can feel the bone so cutting down to it and easing the blade first one side around the bone then the other. You can lift the bone out easily. I cut my monkfish into strips as I wanted to make cubes to marinade and skewer. It’s a really lovely meaty fish so lends itself well to being threaded onto kebab sticks.
I decided to make a mixture for kebabs as this would be fantastic on the BBQ. Firstly I put my kebab sticks in cold water to so soak, I then began to prepare my monkfish marinades.
So the first recipe I made was Oriental monkfish kebabs!
Ingredients
Cubed monkfish tail
1 tbsp of dark soy sauce
1 tbsp runny honey
½ tsp dried chilli flakes
Colour peppers cut in chunks to skewer.
Method
I lined a bowl with a freezer bag and then put soy, honey and chilli in the bag. Lifted the bag and acetated the mixture until combined. Resting the bag back in the bowl I added the monkfish and again lifted the bag and moved the monkfish around until evenly coated, tied the bag and put it in the fridge to marinade for ½ hour. Then removed the fish from the marinade and thread onto skewers with pepper slices between each chunk.
The second recipe was a simple wrapped monkfish. And I took one of the strips of monk fish and set aside before I cut the remaining ones into thick cubes. I wrapped the strip of monkfish meat in smoked dry cure bacon. Once I had this long sausage shape wrapped I secured it with small kebab sticks and then cut it into potions between the sticks so it was easy to pop on the BBQ. What could be simpler? And the flavours are fabulous.
The next recipe again was quick and easy. Monkfish with chorizo.
This just involves cutting monkfish into cubes and slicing chorizo and cutting peppers and threading onto kebab sticks. The combination of the chorizo and monkfish on the BBQ is just amazing!
The final recipe I simply tossed the monk fish in a marinade of sesame oil lime juice and zest, a crushed garlic clove and chilli powder and left for 15 minutes and then threaded onto my skewer with peppers, courgettes and cherry tomatoes.
One monkfish tail, four different recipes and a real change to have some fish on the BBQ!
