Rick Stein: 'My favourite fish recipes after 50 years of cooking seafood'

“This recipe has stood the test of time; and again it is influenced by a trip to France,” says telly chef Rick Stein.

“This time, I’d found a grocer selling new-season garlic (available during late spring and early summer). It occurred to me that that would make a delicious dish with fennel.

"The combination works really well with monkfish.”

Serves 4. Ingredients: 16 large garlic cloves, peeled (new season, if possible); 100g semolina; 15g fennel-herb sprigs; 100g unsalted butter; 2 fennel bulbs, thinly sliced; 600ml fish stock; 4 pieces of prepared monkfish fillet, each about 225g; 4tbsp sunflower oil; 2tsp lemon juice; A splash of Pernod; Salt and freshly ground black pepper

Slice two of the garlic cloves and put them with the semolina and all but one fennel sprig into a food processor and blend until you have an aromatic pale-green powder. Set aside.

Cut the remaining garlic cloves lengthways into long, thin pieces. Melt half the butter in a pan, add the fennel bulbs and garlic and fry over a medium heat for 10 minutes to lightly brown.

Add half the stock, season, and simmer for 15 minutes until the fennel is tender. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan. Coat the pieces of monkfish in the semolina mixture.

Heat the oil in an ovenproof frying pan over a medium heat. Add a small knob of the remaining butter and all the monkfish and fry, turning now and then, until golden all over (about three to four minutes altogether).

Transfer the pan to the oven and bake the monkfish in the hot oven for a further eight minutes until cooked through.

Remove the pan from the oven, lift the fillets on to a chopping board, and rest them for four to five minutes. Cut each diagonally into thick slices, keeping each fillet in shape. Transfer to a plate and keep warm.

Finely chop the remaining fennel herb. Add the sautéed fennel mixture, lemon juice, Pernod, remaining stock and chopped herb to the empty monkfish pan over a high heat.

Simmer rapidly to reduce, then add the remaining butter, simmering to melt and combine to make a rich sauce.

Adjust the seasoning, if necessary. Lift the fish onto four warmed plates and spoon some sauce around each to serve.

Tips and wine notes from Rick’s sons Jack and Charlie Stein: Jack’s chef notes – Monkfish was an under-appreciated fish in the Eighties, when Dad first brought it on to the menu.

This dish is a favourite of the chefs, because it requires perfect braising of the fennel and garlic, perfect sauce work with the emulsion, and then cooking the monkfish to the perfect 50°C, resting it, and the satisfaction of slicing it, knowing it is just right.

Charlie’s wine notes – Fennel is a tricky ingredient for wine pairing – the herbaceous and aniseed qualities don’t sit well next to purely fruity wines.

And monkfish is a meaty fish, so we need a wine with lots of weight. I’d go for a chardonnay, but maybe a more taut style… perhaps even from an English producer, like the brilliant Danbury Ridge in Essex.

Classic fish pie

“I grew up eating my mother’s fish pie, which was very like this one, although she didn’t use smoked haddock (but I love its smokiness) and I avoid using salmon,” says legendary restaurateur and food writer Rick Stein.

“For a long time, I felt the restaurant didn’t need staples like fish pie; I felt they weren’t restauranty enough. But it’s not true, hearty dishes are exactly what we need sometimes.”

Serves 4. Ingredients: 1 small onion, thickly sliced; 2 cloves; 1 bay leaf; 600ml whole milk; 300ml double cream; 450g skin-on cod fillet; 225g undyed smoked haddock fillet; 4 eggs; 100g butter; 3tbsp plain flour; 5tbsp chopped flat-leaf parsley; Freshly grated nutmeg; 1.25kg floury potatoes, such as Maris Piper or King Edward, peeled and quartered; 1 egg yolk; Salt and freshly ground; White pepper

Stud a couple of onion slices with the cloves. Put these in a large pan with the bay leaf, 450ml of the milk, and the cream, cod and smoked haddock.

Bring the liquid just to the boil, then simmer for eight minutes. Lift the fish out on to a plate and strain the cooking liquor into a jug. Set both aside, leaving the fish until it is cool enough to handle.

Meanwhile, hard-boil the eggs for just eight minutes. Drain them and leave to cool. Peel the cooled eggs, and cut them into chunky slices.

Break the cooled fish into large flakes, discarding the skin and any stray bones. Sprinkle the flakes over the base of a shallow 1.75-litre ovenproof dish. Arrange the egg on top.

Melt 50g of the butter in a pan over a medium heat. Add the flour and cook for one minute. Off the heat, gradually stir in the reserved cooking liquor.

Return the pan to the heat and bring the liquid to the boil, stirring all the time.

Simmer gently for 10 minutes to cook out the flour, then remove the pan from the heat once more, stir in the parsley and season with nutmeg, salt and white pepper.

Pour the sauce over the fish and leave to cool. Chill in the fridge for one hour.

Meanwhile, boil the potatoes for 25–30 minutes until tender. Drain them, then tip them back into the pan and mash with the rest of the butter and the egg yolk.

Season with salt and freshly ground white pepper. Beat in enough of the remaining milk to form a soft, spreadable mash. Pre-heat the oven to 200°C/180°C fan.

Spoon the potato over the filling and mark the surface with a fork. Bake for 35–40 minutes until piping hot and golden brown on top.

Tips and wine notes from Rick’s sons Jack and Charlie Stein: Jack’s chef notes – This is a classic fish pie that came back on to the menu after Dad made Seafood Lovers’ Guide for TV, at around the turn of the millennium. Like he says, sometimes comfort is everything we’re looking for.

Charlie’s wine notes – Talk about comfort. I don’t mess around with matches when it comes to fish pie – reach for a complementary, buttery chardonnay.