Jordan Ryan, head chef at The Weeping Willow in Barrow, Suffolk, holds on to the edying embers of summer with his recipe for monkfish taco, Champagne pickled cabbage, salsa and coriander mayonnaise
Hello and welcome back. October is upon us, which means it’s been one year since I started writing these food columns.
I honestly can’t believe how quickly this last year has gone and I’d like to thank you all again for continually reading these. The support and interest from these columns has been fantastic and I feel incredibly lucky to have this opportunity.
So we’re now in autumn with its colder days and earlier nights, which means we all start looking more at comfort foods like stews and more heavy, hearty dishes, some proper tasty heavy hitters, but not me in this column.
I’m keeping hold of that last little bit of summer with some super tasty and fresh monkfish tacos.
Now there’s a few reasons I have chosen this dish, but the main one is I was lucky enough to have been asked to do a food demonstration recently at Aldeburgh food festival on the fish stage. There were quite a few questions regarding the dish and unfortunately the crowd couldn’t eat it and I didn’t have the recipe cards to hand, so I figured this would be a great way to get it out there.
So, the dish, Monkfish Taco, Champagne Pickled Cabbage, Salsa and Coriander Mayonnaise – I know I shouldn’t say things like this but I can whole heartedly say that when I made these for the first time and tried it I was impressed with myself. I didn’t expect the flavours to complement each other as well as they do.
I knew they’d work and pair nicely but that’s all, I thought it’d be ‘nice’, but it’s ‘a lot better than just nice. This dish gives you a super fresh hit in the monkfish with some lime, then a subtle but sweet pickle, then a hit with a bit of spice from the salsa and just creates a super tasty mouthful.
I’m going to be using this as a snack at the Willow for a little while, but it’d be a great main course to share with friends or family – serve it with a little pickled salad or with some refried beans or black beans and rice to get some really good flavours.
As always, this dish doesn’t have to be made with monkfish as I understand it isn’t the easiest fish to get and it’s not the cheapest of fish. A good alternative would be cod. Cod is super versatile and it takes heavy flavours so well as it has a very mild flavour itself. So don’t be too gentle on the spice, the fish can handle it as long as you can.
As always, a little history on monkfish before we get into the recipe and method.
So notoriously, they are the ugliest fish and are almost always given to restaurants with their heads off. However, monkfish cheeks are super tasty – they have this beautiful meaty taste to them and hold up amazingly on the barbecue, fried, as well as being used for curries. The tail is even better, meaty, delicate and super tasty, the spine runs down and you can either take it off the bone or cook with the bone in.
There’s some fantastic monkfish recipes out there and if you haven’t tried it yet then please give it a go. It’s such a versatile fish that there isn’t much that doesn’t work with it.
MONKFISH TACO, CHAMPAGNE PICKLED CABBAGE, SALSA AND CORIANDER MAYONNAISE
Ingredients:
1 monkfish tail or 1kg of monkfish cheeks
Pickled cabbage:
1 bottle Champagne or Prosecco
1 Chinese cabbage
1 red cabbage
2 red chili
25ml lemon juice
1 bunch parsley
Salt
Salsa:
1kg tomatoes
1 red onion
2 jalapeños
1 lime
1 bunch coriander
Mayonnaise:
150g bunch coriander
300ml veg or rapeseed oil
50g egg yolk
10g Dijon mustard
20ml lemon juice
Salt to taste
Pane and taco:
20g plain flour
1 egg
50g Panko breadcrumb
Soft taco shells
Method:
1. Start by finely slicing your Chinese cabbage and red cabbage, you want thin strips of these. Then, once that’s done, finely dice the chili, roughly chop the parsley and mix all together. Once you are happy all is mixed together, add 200ml of prosecco or Champagne (make sure you have enough left for a glass yourself), a squeeze of lemon juice and some salt, then leave aside to slowly pickle.
2. While that’s doing its thing start making the salsa. So dice the red onion, tomato and jalapeños really small. Put in a bowl then roughly chop the coriander, zest and juice a lime and mix all together. Give it a little taste, it should be super fresh and zesty with a lovely little kick at the end.
3. Now we’re going to make a coriander mayonnaise. You can do one of two things here depending on what you have at home to use. If you have a blender or a stick blender then perfect, if not, I hope you’re strong and ready to do some serious whisking… Alternatively, if you can’t be bothered to whisk (I wouldn’t blame you) then you can just buy some mayonnaise and add the coriander oil we’re about to make to it, just don’t add loads quickly otherwise it’ll split.
4. So coriander oil – slightly warm the oil in a saucepan, setting 2/3 for a maximum two to three minutes, you want it roughly 70°C. Once the oil is there, add the coriander and then add to a blender and blend fast and hard - you want the coriander to turn into a nice green oil, shouldn’t take long, maybe 30 seconds. Put the oil aside.
5. Add the egg yolk, mustard, lemon juice and salt to the blender and start to blend fast again. Once the egg yolk has started to whip, the mixture will rise, when this has happened slowly pour the oil in until a mayonnaise forms. Pour nice and slowly, if you get a bit heavy handed and pour too much at once and it splits add a little water to the mix and you should be able to bring it back – it will alter the taste slightly so you may need to add more salt.
6. Now for the monkfish. Cut into small bitesize pieces and then pane with the flour, egg and breadcrumb. Rule of thumb is flour, then egg, then breadcrumb and my top tip is use one hand for flour and breadcrumb and the other for egg, this will keeps your hands relatively clean.
7. Once all is covered in breadcrumbs, we can shallow fry them – a little oil ticking over on the stove, get them in, they’ll take a maximum two minutes to cook, you’ll get a nice golden brown colour on the breadcrumb and they’re good to go.
8. Warm the soft shell tacos up in the oven for a few minutes and then serve. You can build them however you like, just make sure that with every mouthful you get all those fantastic flavours in one.
9. As always it’s been a pleasure and please if you need anything give me a shout, I’m more than happy to help any way I can and as usual I’d love to see you guys recreating these. Until next time, enjoy the tacos.
Jordan Ryan is head chef at The Weeping Willow, 39 Bury Road, Barrow Hill, Barrow, Bury St Edmunds IP29 5AB
Call 01284 771881
See www.theweepingwillow.co.uk
