Picante de Mariscos is a rich and creamy dish that you can make with either fish or a combination of seafood. It’s somewhat reminiscent of chowder and easy to adopt as comfort food. Serve it as a main course over a big bowl of rice, or as a first course with good bread.
Serves:4
Ingredients:
- 800 gm Monkfish fillet
- 8 Cristal bay prawns whole
- 100 ml olive oil
- 1/2 tsp ground white pepper
- 1/2 tsp salt
Sauce:
- 30 gm unsalted butter
- ½ brown onion, diced
- ½ tbs garlic paste (recipe below)
- 10 gm ground coriander seeds
- 1tbs Aji Panca *
- 1tbs Aji Amarillo *
- 100 ml fish or prawn stock
- 50 ml white wine
- 100 ml evaporated milk
Garnish:
- 1 small cabbage, cut into quarters
To make the Sauce:
Add the butter to a heavy-based saucepan – be careful not to brown the butter – add the onions and let them soften without colour and once they are cooked, add the roasted garlic paste and ground coriander.
Stir until all these ingredients are well combined and continue to cook on a low heat for 5 minutes.
Add the Aji Panca and Aji Amarillo, the stock, white wine and the evaporated milk. Keep cooking on a low heat for another 15 minutes.
Place the mix into the Thermomix or blender and blend until you achieve a smooth, creamy consistency.
Set the sauce aside to rest for 10 minutes, this will allow all ingredients and flavours to infuse and create a more balanced result.
The Monkfish:
To sear and finish the Monkfish fillets. Set oven at 180C. In your frying pan, place a piece of folded baking paper on the bottom (this will prevent the fish from sticking to the pan). Pour a tablespoon of olive oil on the paper, turn on the heat and allow the paper to get hot in the pan. Place the fillet skin-side down, leaving it alone, let it cook from the bottom of the fillet. There’s no need to turn it. This will take about 4 minutes.
Put the fillets onto a flat try and into the heated oven to finish cooking for 4-5 minutes. Place the cabbage quarters into the oven on another shelf and cook for the same amount of time.
In a heavy-based pan, add the sauce and the prawns at low heat and cook for 3 minutes.
Serve the fish on a plate dressed with the sauce and 2 prawns each.
Garnish with the cabbage.
* NOTE: Aji Panca and Aji Amarillo are chilli peppers often used in Peruvian cooking. They can be found in specialty South American grocers, usually in paste form.
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