Monkfish wrapped in pancetta with asparagus
What I try to do each week is to plan our meals a bit so that we at least have some decent food. The reality is that our lives are quite hectic so it is sometimes just not feasible to prepare a good meal and still do all the things we want. In my line of work it is sometimes necessary to work evenings, weekends or other hours, while Tom loves to go fishing with friends. Fishing is apparently essential to do as early as possible in the evening (after he comes home from work,
which has fairly normal working hours)
So if you look at a typical evening such as we had yesterday, that means that he comes home around 6 pm and this particular case I had to leave at 6.30 since I had a family photoshoot in the studio at 7.30. Leaves precious little time for a normal meal!
I had set my mind to make a recipe of Jamie Oliver’s book “Cook” wit involved pancetta, asparagus and monk fish. Tom had promised to be home early, so I figured I could still make the dish… Taking a photo of it would be nice, but if I could find the time… was doubtful.
I bought the fish in the afternoon which was incredibly expensive by the way (18 euro’s for about 500 gr. of monk fish-fillet. It still had to be made into a fillet which meant I had to pay for the entire fish and not just the fillet)
The recipe calls for pancetta, which of course I could not find anywhere around here, so had to do with regular smoked bacon.
All in all Tom was still quite late or at least later then he said the day before so it was a bit hurried but at least we still had a lovely meal. I did take three photos in a hurry so the styling is not exactly how I had wanted it but still half decent…:) The recipe is definitely worth a try and you can choose cheaper fish such as haddock, whiting or hake, which funnily enough my fish market didn’t have yesterday.
Monkfish with lemon mayonaise and asparagus
Recipe (for four persons, from Jamie Oliver’s Cook):
| Monkfish wrapped in pancetta with asparagus |
- 4 fish fillets, 2,5 cm thick each around 200 gr each. without skin and bones. I used monk fish
- 2 sticks of fresh rosemary, only the leaves, finely chopped
- grated lemonzest of two lemons
- black pepper
- 16 thin slices of pancetta or bacon
- 4 tablespoons mayonaise
- 2 large bunches of asparagus, cleaned
- Preheat the oven to 200 degrees C. Sprinkle your fishfillets with the lemonzest (without the bitter white stuff!), rosemary and fresh pepper. No salt is needed because they are going to be wrapped in delicious salt pancetta. Put the slices of pancetta on a chopping board and flatten them extra with the side of knife. Put four slices together on the board, put a fishfillet on top and roll the package closed.
- Heat a large, ovenproof frying pan, put a little oil in and add the pieces of fish with the good side up. Fry them for about a minute and after that put the pan in the oven, for about 10-12 minutes depending on the thickness of the filet, untill the pancetta is crispy and nice golden brown.
- While the fish is in the oven you have time to make the lemon mayonaise with either fresh mayonaise or mayonaise from a jar. Add enough lemonjuice as the intention is for the mayonaise to be a little bit too sour. In combination with the fish and asparagus that will be less. It’s ok if the mayonaise is a little thinner then usual.
- Cook or steam the asparagus and serve them with the fish and the lemon mayonaise.
Appetizer
Asian
Bread
Breakfast
Desserts & other sweets
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Mmm…. looks goods. Interesting combination of ingredients!
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You should really try it as it does taste fantastic and is quite easy to prepare as well.
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I made this and absolutely loved it.
A very tasty meal.
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