I chose to make this soup using meaty fish, which won’t flake during cooking and opted for Monkfish; you can use any other derivative, chicken or even tofu if you fancy it, although I haven’t tried this yet. I also decided to add prawns, as my wife loves them!

Ok, so here’s the ingredients and as with any recipe, these are just suggestions so feel free to use your gastronomic-artistic license to experiment!

• Monkfish (amount of which depends on how much you wish to eat, or spend!)
• 1 Onion, cut into bite-sized pieces
• 1 Large tomato, cut into bite-sized pieces
• Approx. 30g of mushrooms, cut into bite-sized pieces*
• 1 Tablespoon of galangal, thinly sliced
• 1 Tablespoon of lemon grass, thinly sliced
• 2 Kaffir lime leaves, rolled and cut into small slices
• 2 Spring onions, sliced into approx. 1 inch pieces
• Fish or chicken stock (you can get good quality, pre-made in the shops, approx. 400-500ml)

*For authenticity, I purchased some Thai mushrooms which look like ears(!) from the local Thai supermarket. Ok, so they don’t look the most appertising, but they do taste good

Place the following in to a bowl and stir to make a sauce:

• 2 Tablespoons of lime juice
• 2 Tablespoons of fish sauce
• Between 1 and 15 dried chillies cut into small pieces (depending on how hot you like it, I use about 4 or 5 and it’s hot!)
• 1/2 Tablespoon of sugar (palm or brown)

Ok, th fun bit:

1. Place the stock into a pan with the lemongrass and galangal and boil for a couple of minutes – this will start and infuse the stock with those fresh flavours
2. Add the monkfish and this will start to cook pretty quickly
3. Once the monkfish has changed colour, add the onion and mushrooms and cook until bubbles start to appear in the middle of the pan – do not stir at this stage as you will lengthen the time prior to boiling and leave the vegetables over-cooked
4. Now add the sauce you prepared earlier
5. Now add the tomato
6. Turn off the heat, add the kaffir lime leaves, spring onion and serve immediately
7. Enjoy!

Taylor & Ng 6 Piece 14″ Flat Bottom Wok Set 12168 $38.99

ELECTIRC WOK $15.99

Joyce Chen 14″ Carbon Steel Xylan Non-Stick Wok with Birch Handle $11.49

Hand Hammered Iron Wok round bottom Pow handle 36cm14″ $71.99

Asian Traditions Wok Pan 13 1/2 in. with lid – NIB $5.99

New Aroma 5qt Professional Wok $9.99

Grill Zone 43012 Nonstick Grill Wok with Handles $14.95

Taylor & Ng 7 Piece 14″ Preseasoned Round Bottom Wok Set 12174 $37.94

NEW Aluminum Non-stick Wok 11 Inches – Sarten Hondo De Aluminio Anti-adehrente $19.99

West Bend Electric Wok Complete with both racks and Tempura Power Cord $24.99

Having purchased a rather large piece of monkfish for the Tom Yam soup in my previous post, we were left with  a fair portion sat awaiting some imagination and thought to compliment this wonderful ingredient. It’s funny to think that some 15-20 years ago, monkfish was only ever deemed good enough to use for scampi….oh how times of changed! Because this is now an expensive fish (the vast majority of the fish is waste and only the tail ends up being sold), it deserves some care and attention when cooking – this is not something that I cook with very often, so generally on special occasions and on this occasion, my wife passed an exam and I was extremely proud of her. She has invested a tremendous amount of time and effort in the lead up to this exam, whilst trying to juggle a full-time job and being  wonderful mother to our daughter, so hats off!

This lead me to think of what I could do with the monkfish; I remembered that way back when we first met, I attempted to win my wife over with a bit of cooking and whipped up some chicken breast, stuffed with garlic and mozzarella, wrapped in parma ham, served with roast potatoes and caramelized sugar snap peas. I remember that she was suitably impressed and decided to play on that dish slightly – if it worked before, the odds certainly appeared to be stacked in my favour So decided  to take the monkfish and wrap it with a sun dried tomato layer and then parma ham. Boy did it taste good.

I took some sun-dried tomato paste (or just use sun-dried tomatoes), which is pretty rich in flavour but compliments the fish extraordinarily well and, blitzed this up in a blender for a few seconds. I then laid out several pieces of parma ham (enough to wrap a portion of monkfish completely) and smeared them with the blitzed paste.

Wrap the monkfish in the paste-covered parma ham and cook in the oven at about 180 degrees for about 15 or so minutes.

Serve with vegetables – I opted for potato wedges drizzled with olive oil and parsley, baked in the oven for 30 minutes.

Because it was a bit of a celebration, we ate this with a bottle of Rose Sancerre (my wife’s favourite), which complimented the dish fantastically!

Quick, easy and great in flavour, enjoy!

Cuisinart Classic DLC-XPBC 20 Cup Food Processor $649.95

Cuisinart DLC-2APK Mini Prep Plus Food Processor – Pink $36.49

Cuisinart – DLC-XP Food Processor, 20-Cup Work Bowl $649.95

Cuisinart – DFP-3 Handy Prep 3-Cup Food Processor $54.95

Kalorik Food Processor in Black HA 31535 $79.85

KitchenAid 12 Cup Food Processor KFP750 white LARGE $129.99

Stainless Steel Food Processor Mini Chopper Kitchen Gadgets NEW B4060 $12.95

BLACK & DECKER 500W 10 CUP FOOD PROCESSOR $58.80

Euro-Pro Ninja Master Prep Blender Food Processor NEW $31.00

Euro Pro Shark Ninja Master Prep Pro Food Processor and Drink Mixer in Black $49.99