Well, it sorta started like that. I was at the fishmarkets on friday thinking that my dear one needed a fix of good fresh fish. He loves his fish, and crabs, and oysters and particulaly sashimi.
I was only supposed to come home with raw salmon and perhaps some garfish for him to eat. But then I discovered the live mud crab bucket. 'Yes, please, the largest one, thanks'.
Then while perusing the garfisha and placing my order, a giant monkfish tail smiled at me, and soon it was bundled up and ready to go. Sydney fish markets are not the cheapest place to get fish, but they often surprise me with what they have on offer.
Home with my little catch, and then a few hours to dream about recipes. As the crab was live, it was the first to be had.
We'd made Singapore Mud Crab in the past, and I just knew it could be better. Oh dear Lord...it was better than better, it was fantastic. Here's what we did.
BLEND
5 hot hot chillis
5 cloves garlic
Handful of green coriander leaves
1 big tsp of fresh chilli
1/2 tsp salt
1 tsp ground coriander
1 tsp ground cumin
Mix puree with
3/4 cup of chilli tomato puree
Prepare live crab and cut into pieces
Heat peanut oil in wok.
Stir fry chilli puree for a few mins to release the flavours
Add coconut cream to taste (about 1/2 cup)
Stir in crab until all pieces are covered with sauce.
Lid and steam until crab is cooked – 5-10 mins
Add a drop more coconut cream if desired.
Add juice of one lime. Stir and serve
Serve with pineapple fried rice
It was stunningly good. The coconut cream diluted the chilli flavour just enough for this to be finger lickin' good.
Another night or two later, and the monkfish is still waiting for it's moment in the sun. Rick Stein has talked so long and so hard about how fabulous this fish is, that I could barely wait to get it onto our plate. The chosen recipe ended up tossed aside, when I discovered I didn't have all the ingredients, so again with our little coconut crab sauce number we wok-tossed up another plateful of happiness. This time we added more coconut cream plus a final garnish of fresh basil and Hoo Boy, didn't this turn out fantastic.
The fish is succulent, juicy, white and almost bereft of bones. It's fleshy creaminess enhanced the sauce enormously until we almost had a Thai Green Curry without the store bought paste.
Monkfish is our new go-to fish when we want a stew type of meal as it held together beautifully when cooked, and yet stayed juicy through and through.
Again, the pineapple fried rice was served along side, as I'm in total craving moment and just love that sweet bite of pineapple against a chilli infected sauce.
Pineapple fried rice
Slice a small onion finely
Dice quarter of pineapple finely
Chop a handful of coriander
Heat oil in wok
Add onion and cook until starting to colour.
Toss over a good teaspoon of white pepper and stir to release flavour.
Stir in pineapple and cook for a minute or two
Add a couple of cups of boiled plain rice
Mix and stir until rice is heated through
Beat two eggs and toss over rice.
Continue stir frying until cooked. ( A really hot wok would give you those lovely crispy bits, but eh...it doesn't matter, this is still good.)
Stir through coriander and serve.
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