Whilst I admit the photos don’t do the dish justice…..I have to be proud with how the dish turned out due to a simple fact….I only had a saucepan to make the dish in…..yes you read that correctly !!!!??

You see, I’m on holiday in Cornwall. As a family we’d come prepared to eat in at night….however I wasn’t prepared for the lack of cooking utensils due to us staying in a self catering lodge in St Merryn just outside of Padstow.

The lack of utensils has made it a challenge but I’ve had to adapt which I’ve enjoyed pushing myself to do so….. even something as doing a family fry up… something you’d think was simple ?? Well with a frying pan the size of my hand and a saucepan I manage to pull it off as below shows….kind of loved the experience.

Sorry…..back to the curry.

Well today we spent the day in Looe. A picturesque fishing town on the east of Cornwall. So whilst spending time taking in the town, harbour and crabbing I visited a number of local fishmongers in the harbour. If I can money permitting I like to support local businesses.

Living in the Midlands we appear to have less of an opportunity to eat fresh sustainable products like fresh fish. This saddens me. so whilst down in Looe I took advantage of the fresh produce. The fishmonger kindly filleted the monkfish tail for me removing the tail bone. On the way back to our accommodation I dropped into the local Tesco to pick up some overpriced basics to make my version of a Jack Stein curry…..well I’m just staying outside of Padstow so I have to pay homage to my food heroes family !!!!

Ingredients- (my rough ingredients that is) a little vegetable oil, 2 onions finely chopped, 2 large heaped tsp of garlic and ginger paste, 8/10 curry leaves, curry powder ( my own brought from home) 4 tomatoes finely chopped, 1 tin of coconut milk, monkfish tails & two green chillies finely diced….as simple as that !!!

Method- heat you pan( in my case a sauce pan!!!)) adding the oil. When hot add the onions and the curry leaves then gently fry until nice and translucent which should be 3/5 minutes.

Add the ginger paste and mix this into your onion mix for about a minute.

Once the kitchen smells all garlicky push the ingredients to the side of your pan. Add in the curry powder. Let this gently heat for a minute then combine everything coating the onion mix. At this point the kitchen will smell great 👍

Add in the chopped tomatoes.

Give the pan a good stir. Allow this to cook for 20 minutes occasionally stirring to prevent it sticking. This method brings a brilliant depth to the dish. A different technique which I’m used to but one I’ll definitely do again. If the pan does start to stick add a little water. Mine didn’t due to the juices/moisture from the tomatoes.

Once you have a nice thick onion paste add the coconut milk. Ensure you give this a good stir to break down the onion mixture.

At this point you can heat a frying pan with a little vegetable oil. The idea is the fry the monkfish separately giving it a nice brown crust which adds flavour. Monkfish is referred to as the ‘steak of the sea’ due to is firm meat like texture.

Turn the fish to ensure you get the even brown crust keeping an eye on your curry sauce.

Right at the end add your diced green chillies and mix into the sauce.

I served mine up with some rice….sorry the images don’t feed the eye but the dish certainly did.

Really proud of this due to how it was cooked.

The snap was really bang on. Thank you for reading my pointless ramblings. I just wanted to express my delight on this dish…plus everyone is still sleeping so I had the chance to write it all down.