A Review and a Bacon-Wrapped Rant

Bacon Wrapped Locally Caught Monkfish

(Cook Time: 30 minutes; Serves 2)

Ingredients:
 2 monkfish fillets
2 sprigs fresh thyme 
2 sprigs flat parsley
12 grape tomatoes
4 cloves fresh garlic
1/2 lemon in slices
1/2 cup dry white wine
2-3 tbsp Fairway Extra Virgin Olive Oi
4 slices Fairway Natural Smoked Bacon

Preparation:
Season both sides of the fish with salt, thyme and parsley. Wrap tightly with bacon. 

In a large roasting pan, add olive oil and fish. Toss in lemon slices, cherry tomatoes and garlic. Add 1/2 cup wine. Place pan in 450 degree oven and cook, turning once until bacon becomes crispy, about 10 minutes. Add remaining wine. 

Transfer fish to serving plate. Arrange roasted tomatoes, garlic and lemon slices alongside fish, squeeze in remaining 1/2 lemon. Drizzle fish with pan juices and sprinkle with parsley. Serve immediately. 

Source: http://blog.fairwaymarket.com/2014/06/fairway-bacon-wrapped-locally-caught-bacon-monkfish-recipe/

This is a great recipe, and as soon as it was presented to me, I shared it on my Facebook timeline to personal friends and family. I made it days after we discovered it.

It also serves as a warning to corporate concerns that are not necessarily bloggers nor professional cooks; because this recipe can spell disaster for someone who doesn’t know their way around a kitchen and fresh ingredients.

And I am not necessarily criticizing the woman who wrote it because her mandate may very well be to be brief, cut it in half and be briefer still! The problem is that while brevity is a good best practice online -- especially for mobile apps -- it may not be the best idea when writing about food.

I rarely make a recipe as written. Sometimes I’ll follow it step-by-step, but with an eye to what I can change the next time I make it. It’s my nature. I tweak. I’m an tweaker. And an anarchist.

My grandmothers and my great grandmothers dealt in pinches and dashes and other vague measurements that are helpful only to experienced cooks. I do this too, but most of my readers are not novice cooks. Still, when one of you has a question, you know to ask. But a corporate site that is open to the public needs to adhere to a different set of standards than my little personal blog.

Recipes require some definitive values and others can be more opaque, but you have to choose carefully how to dole that out. It may also help to start by using the right photo.

Their story ran this:

It's beautiful and the photo is labeled bacon-wrapped scallops. That may be a problem when you cook it and it comes out looking like this instead:

Or like this:

As you can never expect to buy a piece of fish cut in exactly the same way each time to purchase it, you could explain that the monkfish fillets are about 1 pound each (for instance). This is important because you will require more or less cooking time (you do not want to overcook it but you certainly shouldn’t undercook it either).

Monkfish is a salt water fish and doesn’t require a lot of salt – and because the bacon is likely to contain some, you do best to use in extreme moderation or none at all. Garlic powder and pepper, as well as the thyme, will season it well enough.

Two sprigs of fresh thyme? Really?! That you can be specific about! This is ridiculous, by the way, just as is the mandate to use two sprigs of fresh parsley and have enough to sprinkle on the fish and to garnish.

If you are starting with ½ cup of wine, and add it as you are putting the fish in the oven, at the 10-minute mark, exactly what is the remaining wine you add? I don’t do new math but it sounds like voodoo home economics.

This recipe doesn’t call for it, but I suggest you slice the garlic or it will remain largely uncooked -- stronger than the fish and slightly bitter. You can also grate or finely mince to add heft and an underlying creaminess to the pan juices.

My fish was done in about 20 minutes, but this recipe should have included a note to explain what to expect when the dish is done – from the color and firmness of the fish, to the level of crispiness to expect in the bacon.

When we leave these details to the imagination of the reader, unless you have someone who has been cooking for some time, you invite doubt and disaster. I’m all for experimenting, but dive in intelligently knowing what can and cannot be done.

Finally, if anyone is paying attention at Fairway: you obviously have someone to test the recipes, and a staple of writers for the blog, but you need to invest in a good editor and let the blogs run as long as they need to (dedicated readers will make time for things that are of interest to them).