MONKFISH
Monkfish is a very ugly fish with dark skin, but the flesh is white and slightly rosy (see picture) and it is extremely good and a common treat in fine dining restaurants. Monkfish have a very wide head, and the body is flat. The mouth is very wide as well (see some pictures on the web) and makes up half of the body length! This is one reason why it can swallow fish that are almost as big as itself. The fins on the back have relatively powerful bones (for being a fish) that may feel weird if you are not used to them. Monkfish lives hidden on the bottom of the sea and waits for its prey to pass by, much because it is a bad swimmer (see some monkfish videos here). The camouflage is simply provided by the color of the skin, which is quite dark with brown, red, and/or black tones. A usual weight of monkfish is 5 kg/10 lb but it can reach quite impressive sizes comparable to an average human being. Meeting such an aggressive fish is certainly not desirable, but eating it is an entirely different story...
Monkfish is usually sold with the head cut off, maybe to not scare people, or maybe just because the head is so big and not edible (although it can be used for making stock). To prepare the monkfish you need to remove the skin, the bony fin on the back, and get rid of all membranes that surround the flesh. To do this, first take a firm grip on the skin, lift it up, and cut with the knife under the skin and close to the flesh. Do so for the entire length of fish to remove the skin. You can also, which is actually an easier way to go, drag the skin off the fish after making an initial cut into it to loosen it from the flesh. The skin is quite slippery though, so you may need to hold it with a towel. Once the skin is removed, cut off the bones from the dorsal fin (just cut under them, close to the flesh). Now you only need to trim the fish from all membranes, just hold them with the fingers and slip the knife under them and cut them off by following the shape of the flesh. One last thing to do is to remove the thick blood vessels that run along the sides of the fish - they are placed below the red lines on the sides. You can just drag them out with your hand. Now the monkfish can be cut into fillets or whatever shape you want.
Monkfish is good all year around, and it is not a very seasonal fish although winter months tend to be the one that chefs still go for. It can be combined with many interesting ingredients to create some good flavor. One classic is to wrap it in bacon or prosciutto and fry it, possibly with finishing it off in the oven if necessary. Tomatoes, wine, lemon, parsley, rosemary, olives or olive oil, chives, chervil - the usual fish-friendly ingredients in other words. Butter is of course a very flavor-heightening ingredient for all fish, and for monkfish, browned butter is superb.