A Rice Dish with Monkfish, Red Peppers, Shallots and Saffron

The Spanish are famed for paella and rice is an important grain when it comes to cooking. On one of those visits to the quayside, I noticed that amongst all the grilled fish, there was this one being prepared. In this dish the monkfish is cooked with the heady flavours of saffron and peppers with some heat provided by pimenton and chilli. In Spain, we noticed the chef at the quayside just colouring the monkfish pieces on a large paella dish before preparing the rice in the same pan. A fish stock had already been prepared earlier using the head, tails and bones of the monkfish which was then added later to the pan for the rice to soak up.

The Spanish like monkfish in these types of dishes because its firm flesh means it doesn’t fall apart when heated up. The chef was very keen to make sure each side was well browned and coated in pepper.

Ingredients

• A good glug of good quality olive oil for frying.
• Monkfish fillets – enough for 10 5cm long pieces
• 1 Tbsp pimenton pepper – to sprinkle on the fillets and more later on for the onion sauce base.
• Salt and black pepper to sprinkle onto the fillets as they fry
• 3 shallots or a large white onion – finely chopped
• 2 cloves garlic – finely chopped
• 1-2 teaspoons – chilli flakes
• 200g (1/2 tin) – pulped tomato with the skins removed.
• 1 pint fish stock made from monkfish pieces or use a couple fo fish stock cubes
• 300-400g of rice  – arroz bomba is ideal but I think the chef might have used paella rice too as I could see a whole mix going in.
• 1 tsp saffron powder or threads. It could have colouring in it from turmeric but it doesn’t matter as long as the rice being cooked colours up a rich golden, almost orange colour.
• 1 jar of red pepper, skinned and sliced – all delis have this although you can prepare your own.
• a large dollop of extremely garlicky aioli

Preparation

1. Prepare the monkfish fillets – its important to remove the membrane as well as taking out any pin bones. Cut into 5cm pieces as neatly as possible.
2. Over a medium flame, add olive oil to a large deep sauté pan, a paella dish or skillet. A flameproof casserole dish will also suffice. The fillet pieces are placed onto the hot pan and allowed to sear and then brown. As they sear, about a 1/2 teaspoon of pepper is added to each side of the fillet along with a good pinch of salt and plenty of black pepper. Each piece is systematically turned over to brown. This takes about a couple of minutes if that.
3. Remove fillets from pan to a side dish.
4. With the fillets removed, add the chopped shallots (onion) and garlic to soften and brown slightly.
5. Add enough pimenton with chilli flakes to colour and spice up the shallot base now gently frying.
6. Add the tomato pulp and continue stirring. Allow it to cook well.
7. Add the fish stock and then the rice.
8. Add the saffron. Stir everything in.
9. Add slices of red pepper.
10. Keep cooking and let the rice soak up the juices. Add pinches of salt but check the seasoning by tasting throughout.
11. Once there is only a little of the cooking liquid left, add the monkfish pieces to cook and also soak up more of the colour. 
12. Remove the pan from the heat and cover. The chef used a dishcloth!! for this but so what. What I really liked about this dish was the slight crunchiness at the base of the rice as it was ladled out. Just superb!
13. You can also add a large dollop of garlic mayonnaise or aioli