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GoodtoKnow
  • 12/07/2025
Here's how to cook monkfish by chef Chantelle Nicholson from Tredwell's Restaurant.
Transcript
00:00Hi, I'm Chantelle Nicholson, Chef Patron of Treadwells in London, and today I'm going to
00:04be showing you how to cook monkfish. So we've got a beautiful monkfish tail which we're going
00:08to be serving with an anchovy aioli and some fresh asparagus. So here we have a monkfish
00:17tail that's been skinned and the head's been removed. I'm going to just take off a little
00:20bit of the membrane that's remaining and then slice it into tranches. So you just want to
00:26remove this membrane that you can see here, just with a sharp knife, just under the skin
00:34and along.
00:36So to cut through the bone you'll need a serrated knife. If you put the bone at the top of the
00:44fish it's much easier to cut through as well.
00:50Next we're going to salt the fish in rock salt for 10 minutes. This is going to serve
01:02a dual purpose by removing some of the moisture, because monkfish can be quite a wet fish, but
01:07also season it right the way through. Pop the monkfish in and pack it again with rock salt
01:16on top. Make sure you use this timer, 10 minutes maximum.
01:21So pop it in the fridge, 10 minutes later we can rinse it off.
01:35For the aioli we've got 3 egg yolks here. I'm going to grate 1 clove of garlic, we've also
01:40got some Dijon mustard, white wine vinegar and a touch of anchovy sauce for a bit of extra
01:46zing.
01:47So pop the mustard in, a dash of white wine vinegar, then we're going to whisk it to emulsify
02:02and add the oil. I generally tend to use a mix of slightly less intense olive oil, more
02:07like a pumice oil and just finish it with a little olive oil otherwise it can be a little
02:11bit bitter.
02:12If you're not a fan of making mayonnaise or aioli by hand you can use a stick blender and
02:15it works really well and a bit quicker.
02:17Once the eggs have gone a little bit pale and aerated we're going to add the oil really
02:21slowly to start with. Once it's starting to thicken you can add the oil a little bit quicker
02:24as well because it's already got the first emulsification has occurred.
02:30That's all of the pumice oil, we're just going to finish with a touch of olive oil to add a
02:37bit more richness.
02:45And the anchovy sauce.
02:48Because the anchovy is quite salty I suggest you taste it before you add any extra seasoning
02:56just to make sure it's not too overly salted. There we have our aioli. So the fish was salting
03:00for 10 minutes, we've just rinsed it off and patted it dry and now we're about to start
03:05cooking. So a really hot pan, nice foaming butter before we put the monkfish in.
03:10So start it off on a high heat and then when it starts to colour just turn it down a little
03:23bit and if you need to cool it down even further just add a touch more butter which will bring
03:26the temperature right down. So when you've got a nice golden colour on the bottom of the
03:31monkfish, turn it over and cook the other side and we're going to baste the coloured side
03:38as well to get even more golden colour on it.
03:41So that's been in the pan both sides for about 6-8 minutes, we're going to pop it in the oven,
03:46really hot oven about 200 degrees for about 3-4 minutes until it's cooked all the way through.
03:51So the monkfish has been in for another 3 minutes. To check and see if it's done, take a metal
03:56skewer, pop it down right beside the bone for a couple of seconds, pull it out and if it's
04:03hot enough to touch, it's ready to go. I like to turn my monkfish on the bone because
04:08I feel it gives it a lot more flavour but if you don't want it that way, just take it
04:13off. I'm just going to pop that on the plate. I'm just going to heat up some of the blanched
04:21asparagus I prepared earlier in that delicious monkfish butter. Pop that on the plate.
04:34And then a really large dollop of the anchovy aioli. And there we have it, the monkfish with
04:51asparagus and anchovy aioli.