“Normally people cure meat or fish using salt and lots of sugar. I don’t use either in this recipe as kombu’s quite unique – it has its own saltiness and such a delicate flavour that you don’t need to use additional ingredients like dill and fennel when curing. The kombu releases the dashi flavour into the fish. It’s really fresh and subtle and you only need to leave it for one night.”
– Takashi Miyazaki, chef, Cork, Ireland
Serves 2-4
INGREDIENTS
For the kombu-cured monkfish
2 sheets dried Irish sugar kelp (kombu)
200g monkfish fillet
For the seaweed dressing
5g dried dillisk (wild seaweed)
5g dried nori
100ml rice vinegar
50g honey
300ml rapeseed oil
To serve
50g chorizo (Takashi gets his from Gubbeen)
Enough olive oil to fry the chorizo
3 gyoza wrappers/skins
enough neutral oil to fry the wraps
A pinch of sea salt
2 shiso leaves, finely sliced
5 chive stalks, finely chopped
METHOD
Rinse the kombu and place a sheet on a tray. Fillet the monkfish and clean it well. Place the monkfish fillet on the kombu and cover it with the other sheet of kombu. Leave in the fridge for a night.
To make the seaweed dressing, cover the seaweed in the rice vinegar and leave to soak for 6 hours. Add the honey to the seaweed infused vinegar, pour over the rapeseed oil and mix together well.
Slice the chorizo very thinly, and fry with a little olive oil in a pan over a low heat. When it is crispy, remove from the pan and leave to sit on some kitchen towel.
Cut the gyoza wrappers into rectangles. Heat the oil in a pan until 170C then deep fry the gyoza rectangles until they start to colour. Remove from the oil and place on some kitchen towel, then sprinkle with sea salt.
To serve, slice the monkfish very thinly and place on a flat plate. Sprinkle the seaweed jus over the monkfish and then finish with the rest of the garnishes – the crisp chorizo, gyoza wrappers, shiso and chives.
