Monkfish Medallions with New Season Potatoes and Asparagus

I was walking by my favourite fishmongers the other day and as I always do, stopped by to browse in their shop window. Sometimes they have pretty interesting stuff. I love to buy, prepare and eat freshly caught fish, and their fish is really fresh.

Being a Kiwi fish shop, they have items which might be considered unusual elsewhere - seasonal sea urchin roe - called kina by the Maori - and uni by the Japanese who make it into delicious sashimi and sushi. Occasionally they even have mutton birds - a curious sea bird which comes from the South Island which has been preserved in brine. They belong to a order of sea birds called petrels and perhaps the "mutton" part of their local name comes from early settlers who thought the meat reminded them of mutton. More information on this when I have actually cooked one.

This time, what caught my eye was a particularly ugly fish. It couldn't be, I thought, a whole monkfish? Sure looked like one. The guy in the shop said, it's a Stargazer - local name for Monkfish and happily filleted it for me. This whole fish about 40cm long cost the equivalent of 2 Big Mac meals and yielded 2 large fillets of firm white flesh and a frame to make super duper fish stock.

Thought I'd make a variation of a Rick Stein recipe.

Ingredients:

• Monkfish fillets, cut into 1 inch thick medallions
• 1/2 cup Roasted buckwheat
• 1 clove fresh garlic
• 1 bunch Fennel fronds
• sea salt
• white pepper
• new season potatoes
• asparagus

Method for the fish:
1. in food processor or mortar, crush up buckwheat with garlic, fennel and sea salt.
2. coat one side of the fish with this mixture
3. fry in olive oil, crumbed side down first, for about 2 min, then turn over and fry till just cooked and brown on the other.

For the veges:
Peel and cook the potatoes in a pot of well salted water, drain and keep warm
prepare and steam the asparagus (or blanch them in the same salted water for about 2 min)

To serve:
Plate the potatoes and asparagus with generous amount of butter or saffron mayonnaise
Place fish alongside..

Eat and enjoy!