Monkfish cheeks with honey-soy carrots, orange-citrus polenta and lime mayo
Recipe Facts
Difficulty level:
medium ◉◉◉◎◎
Quantity for:
approx. 4 people
Preparation time:
⧗ individual
Grilling time:
⧗ individual
Grill(s) & Equipment:
• Kamado grill, pan
Ingredients
• 12 monkfish cheeks
• Vanilla salt
• 1 lemon
• 6 radishes, halved and sliced
• some fennel greens
• Wasabi-Sesame (Asia Department/-
Shop, Sesame with Wasabi
flavoured, hence green)
For the honey soy carrots:
• 8–10 small orange carrots,
yellow, violet
• black and white sesame
• Honey
• Soy sauce
• Orange juice
• Lemon juice
• clarified butter
• Salt
• Sugar
For the orange-citrus polenta:
• 150g polenta
• 100 ml milk
• Juice and zest of ½ organic lime and lemon each
• 1 organic orange for 50 ml juice and zest
• 1 tbsp butter
• some honey
• Salt
For the lime mayo:
• 50g mayonnaise
• Salt
• some lime juice
• 1 pinch of sugar
For the vanilla salt:
• 2 vanilla pods
• 200 g salt flakes
preparation
➊ The vanilla salt needs about 1 week to flavor. First, scrape out the pulp from the vanilla pods and put to one side. Cut the scraped pods into pieces about 2 cm long and put them in a screw-top jar together with the vanilla pulp and the salt flakes. Seal and leave to flavor in a dark place for about 1 week. Shake a little every day so that everything mixes well and the vanilla flavors combine with the salt.
➋ Prepare polenta with milk, orange juice and butter according to the instructions on the packet, season with lime and lemon juice. Place in a small pan, sprinkle with the zest of lime, lemon and orange and continue cooking on the Kamado with a little smoke (e.g. pecan). Depending on the consistency, add a little milk or simmer to create a creamy polenta with a subtle smoky note. Season with salt and honey.
➌ For the lime mayo, stir the mayonnaise until smooth and season with salt, sugar and lime juice.
➍ For the honey-soy carrots, turn the carrots, coat with honey and sprinkle with sesame seeds. Put the butter in a small cast iron pan and add the carrots. When they start to caramelize, deglaze with soy sauce, orange and lemon juice and cook in the pan with the grill closed for about 35 minutes. They should still have a slight bite. Before serving, halve the carrots, mix the honey with the stock and roll the carrots in it, remove and sprinkle with sesame seeds again.
➎ Clean the monkfish cheeks, drizzle with lemon juice and sprinkle generously with vanilla salt and wasabi sesame seeds. Prepare the Kamado grill for direct grilling and set it to 180 °C. Brush the cast iron grate or grill grates with a little vegetable oil and grill the cheeks on both sides for approx. 3-4 minutes; they should have a core temperature of approx. 55 °C to 58 °C (transparent).
➏ Arrange the cheeks on the orange-citrus polenta together with the sesame carrots, garnish with the radishes, fennel greens and mayo and finally drizzle the fish with a mix of soy sauce and lemon juice (ratio 70/30, e.g. 7 tsp soy sauce to 3 tsp lemon juice).
R ecipe by Thomas Eriksson-Fröhlich
Thomas Eriksson is touring under the name “Flaming Pig BBQ”
Happily traveling all over Europe to share his knowledge about grilling and barbecue and to inspire people.
Recipe from FIRE&FOOD issue 03/2021