Tom Anglesea Recipe and Wine Pairing: Red Wine-Poached Monkfish

Fine wine and good food go hand-in-hand. Which is why a collaboration with Great British Chefs was such a natural fit for us. The aim of the game was to come up with premium, restaurant quality wine and food matches that could be recreated at home, and there was only one man for the job in our eyes.

Tom Anglesea has been head chef at The Laughing Heart since it opened in 2016. Right in the centre of East London’s bustling food scene, Tom pushes the boundaries of British cuisine, creating experimental seasonal dishes that are shaped by European and Asian influences. On The Laughing Heart’s ever-evolving menu, you’ll find unexpected ingredients and flavour matches that break way from tradition, along with an extensive and truly impressive wine selection. Being the head chef of a restaurant that also has a reputation of being one of Hoxton’s trendiest wine bars, we knew that Tom was a foodie who’d know a thing or two about wine too!

For us, Tom’s ethos just screams Black Flag, whose approach to winemaking is to produce daring, limited edition small batch wines without constraints or compromise. So, we introduced Tom to the latest offerings in our Black Flag range, to see if any jumped out at him as inspiration for his next recipe creation. From the vintages he sampled, it was the 2018 Pinot Noir that caught Tom’s attention, and we were understandably very intrigued to see what he would come up with to pair with it.

We were really blown away by this dish. An elegant and unusual white fish recipe that completely shatters the myth that only white wine should be served with fish. Red wine and port become the stars of the show, where monkfish is gently poached in a heavily reduced blend of dry and fortified red wine. Accompanied by meaty-textured and earthy girolle mushrooms, succulent baby spinach, lightly charred sweetcorn and a fragrant black garlic sauce, this dish has been designed with all the flavours to complement a complex New World Pinot Noir.

Ingredients:

4 trimmed 170g monkfish fillets
2 sliced onions
4 sliced garlic cloves
10g of thyme
500ml of ruby port
750ml of light red wine (low in tannins, Pinot Noir would be best)
1l brown chicken stock
1 corn on the cob
1 head of black garlic
10ml of light soy sauce
10ml of sherry vinegar
2 tbsp of rapeseed oil
100g of small, trimmed and washed girolles
100g of baby spinach
1 bunch of tarragon

Method:

1. Heat the onions, garlic and thyme in the red wine and port on a medium heat for a few hours until the wine becomes syrupy.
2. Add in the chicken stock, reduce until the blend thickens and becomes glossy, then strain into a clean pan.
3. Pop the black garlic cloves into a fresh saucepan, submerge in water then boil for 10 minutes. Blitz in a food blender, then stir in the soy sauce and sherry vinegar, before putting in the fridge for later.
4. Boil the sweetcorn for 10 minutes, drain, then grill over a very high heat until lightly charred all over. Remove the kernels from the husk with a knife before setting aside.
5. Heat your red wine and port mixture from earlier to just below boiling point, place the monkfish into the pan and cook for 12-15 minutes.
6. While you’re waiting for the monkfish, cook the girolles with some oil in a frying pan until soft, add the baby spinach and allow to wilt, before adding the charred corn and seasoning. Drain and set aside.
7. Drain the monkfish, slice each fillet in half, and plate up with the vegetables. Finish with a drizzle of the red wine and port sauce, a few drops of the black garlic sauce, and garnish with tarragon leaves.

Tom’s monkish masterpiece was inspired by, and tailor-made to match, the Black Flag Winemakers Adelaide Hills Pinot 2018. Made for VW by our very own bespoker Down Under, winemaker Steve Grimley, this is a bright and fresh Pinot boasting a soft, spicy palate of strawberry, cherry, star anise and five spice, which has been allowed to intensify over a long, cool growing season.

The coolness of the Adelaide Hills is most certainly the magic ingredient in this smooth, impeccably balanced Pinot Noir. Light in body and low in tannins, it has an elegance and style that enables it to complement white fish and lighter dishes, despite being red wine. Not only that, Pinot Noir is a grape variety that displays hints of mushroom, wet leaves and toast after a little ageing, which all go rather nicely with the girolles, spinach and charred vegetables in Tom’s dish.

If you fancy recreating this wonderful dish and wine pairing at home, be sure to let us know about it on social and for a chance to appear on our customer wall!

Or, for more on our collaboration with Great British Chefs, head over to their blog for a food lover’s take on our versatile Black Flag range.