![\"monk_baconp\"](\"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/monk_baconp.jpg\")
I recently saw on tv a French chef preparing the relatively popular monkfish wrapped\u00a0in bacon. I buy monkfish as often as I can (i.e. whenever the price is reasonable) because I love it\u00a0for its subtle taste but also\u00a0for\u00a0its firm flesh\u00a0and versatility. This smokey fish\u00a0reminded me of the Korean squid with bacon and Indian spices, discovered\u00a0at the excellent\u00a0Beyond Kimchee<\/a>\u00a0blog and replacing, since then, the\u00a0ex-favourite,\u00a0<\/span>more traditional Spicy Korean Squid<\/a>. Since I prepare Korean style\u00a0monkfish quite often (see the recipe here<\/a>),\u00a0I decided to spice it up in a similar way, adding of course\u00a0the smoked bacon. It worked just perfectly! At the end, just before serving, I put on top another delightful product: chopped Korean Pickled Garlic<\/a> (the dark brown pieces in the middle of the bowl) and it was one of the best fish meals I’d had for years.<\/p>\n![\"Monkfish](\"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/04\/koreanmonkp-315x420.jpg\")
![\"Korean](\"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/05\/squid_porkp-315x420.jpg\")
<\/a>![\"Pickled](\"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2014\/11\/korean_garl-315x420.jpg\")
<\/a>TIPS: Even if you buy a prepared, skinned monkfish fillets (or a whole skinned \u201ctail\u201d), you should make sure to remove all the traces of grey and pinkish thin \u201cfilm\u201d because it will shrink during the cooking process and somehow degrade the texture. You can try peeling it off with fish bone tweezers.<\/p>\n
Of course, you\u00a0can use any firm-flesh fish you like instead of the monkfish.<\/p>\n
Gochujang, the Korean chilli paste is unique and impossible to replace. If you don\u2019t have any Korean grocery shop nearby,\u00a0gochujang is sold widely on internet, almost all around the world, so most of you should be able to buy it (check your local Amazon).\u00a0Look for it also\u00a0in Japanese shops and other\u00a0Asian grocery shops.\u00a0<\/span>If you cannot find\u00a0gochujang, do not try to replace it with other chilli pastes. It is not similar to any chilli product\u00a0I have ever tasted and is an extremely important ingredient in the Korean cuisine (and it has a rather complex taste, hence the difficulty with a replacement). It keeps for ages, after opening, in the fridge, so it’s a good investment (in case you are wondering, what to do with it, check this link<\/a>).<\/p>\n The below ratio of the sauce ingredients should be treated as approximate. Adjust the level of heat, sweetness or saltiness to your taste. Don’t exaggerate with turmeric: you can make your sauce bitter.<\/p>\n Preparation: about 30-40 minutes<\/em><\/p>\n Ingredients (serves two):<\/em><\/p>\n 400-500 g monkfish \u201ctail\u201d, cleaned (see the TIPS) and cut into bite-sized chunks<\/em><\/p>\n 3 stripes (thin) of smoked streaky bacon, cut into bite-sized pieces<\/em><\/p>\n (a small handful of soybean or mungo bean sprouts)<\/em><\/p>\n salt<\/em><\/p>\n 4\u00a0tablespoons sake<\/em><\/p>\n 2-3 tablespoons oil<\/em><\/p>\n white part of two green onions, sliced<\/em><\/p>\n Sauce:<\/em><\/p>\n 2 garlic cloves, crushed or grated<\/em><\/p>\n 2 heaped tablespoons gochujang (see the TIPS)<\/em><\/p>\n 2 tablespoons sake<\/em><\/p>\n 1 tablespoon Korean chilli powder (or other medium hot chilli powder)<\/em><\/p>\n 1 tablespoon honey or syrup or sugar<\/em><\/p>\n 2 tablespoons low-sodium soy sauce<\/em><\/p>\n 1 tablespoon toasted white sesame seeds<\/em><\/p>\n 1\/2 teaspoon turmeric<\/em><\/p>\n 1\/2 teaspoon ground cumin<\/em><\/p>\n 1\/2 teaspoon ground coriander<\/em><\/p>\n 10\u00a0tablespoons (or more) of stock (chicken\/vegetable\/dashi\/Korean fish stock….whatever you like) or water<\/em><\/p>\n 1 tablespoon chopped green onions or chives<\/em><\/p>\n (2 teaspoons toasted sesame oil)<\/em><\/p>\n Sprinkle some salt on monkfish and 4\u00a0tablespoon of sake.<\/p>\n Put aside for 10 minutes.<\/p>\n Combine the sauce ingredients.<\/p>\n Heat a teaspoon of oil\u00a0in a pan.<\/p>\n Fry the bacon and put it aside (don’t remove the fat from the pan).<\/p>\n Pat-dry the monkfish pieces and quickly brown on two\u00a0sides (at high heat) in the bacon fat.<\/p>\n Take them out of the pan.<\/p>\n Add the sauce ingredients to the same pan and bring to a boil.<\/p>\n Lower the heat and put the monkfish pieces, as well as the white part of green onions into the sauce.<\/p>\n Add more water or stock if necessary (it depends also on how watery ou want your sauce to be) and simmer the monkfish until it\u2019s soft but not dry. \u00a0Check often the texture with a fork because monkfish is easily overcooked.<\/p>\n At the end add the sprouts (if using) and fried\/grilled bacon. Give the dish a stir just to warm those up.<\/p>\n Serve sprinkled with sesame seeds, green onion and a splash of sesame oil.<\/p>\n If you have Korean pickled garlic, it’s excellent with this dish.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" I recently saw on tv a French chef preparing the relatively popular monkfish wrapped\u00a0in bacon. I buy monkfish as often as I can (i.e.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":18403,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[9,44,33],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18402"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=18402"}],"version-history":[{"count":18,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18402\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18422,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18402\/revisions\/18422"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/18403"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=18402"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=18402"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.withaglass.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=18402"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}