Name: Monkfish Stew with White Beans
Yield: Makes 6 servings
Cuisine: Irish
Ingredients: 3 tablespoons olive oil; Salt and pepper; 3 garlic cloves, minced; 1 large yellow onion, diced; 2 fennel bulbs, trimmed and cut into wedges; 3 tablespoons pastis; 1 15-ounce can cooked white beans, drained and rinsed; 1 ½ pounds monkfish fillets, cut into 2-inch pieces; ¼ cup crème fraiche (or heavy cream); 2 sprigs rosemary; 1 cup dry white wine; 2 16-ounce cans whole peeled tomatoes, with their juices

Preparation info

Makes
6
servings

Difficulty
Easy

Appears in

Real Irish Food

By David Bowers

Published 2014

About

This stew was my dad’s masterpiece, both a standard suppertime fallback and a showstopping crowd-pleaser for guests. Is it a traditional, historic Irish dish? Well, I can guarantee no peasant was brewing it up in a thatched cottage, no matter how close it sat to the coastline. But it is real Irish food in that my extended family across Ireland and America enthusiastically cooks and eats it with great gusto and frequency. And we do eat a lot of monkfish in Ireland—it’s a succulent and meaty