der teufel steckt im detail

it took me a good couple of years of living in germany before i was able to figure out where the seeteufel fit into the english culinary spectrum.  part of this lethargy i attribute to the fact that he doesn't swim in southern waters so much. the rest of my ignorance can be pinned to the ridiculously erratic naming conventions – seeteufel in german, monkfish in english, ange de mer in french. evidently there is some dissent in ranks over the moral integrity of the poor man's lobster. he certainly leaves much to be desired in the looks department but tastes quite divine so i can kinda appreciate the confusion. unfortunately he lives much longer than your average anchovy and so overfishing tends to be a problem if not handled properly. happily the uk marine conservation society seems to think that monkfish fishing is fairly sustainable at the moment.

we celebrated this last night with our friend the bouillabaise. actually it was kinda the bastard cousin of the bouillabaise but tasted delicious all the same – monkfish, fennel, tomatoes, orange zest, lovely little leccino olives and rouille setoise. oh. so. so. good.