10. Grilled monkfish with black olive sauce and lemon mash

Counting down to the last ten recipes... how scary...

I often have friends over for dinner, mainly weekends and the occasional weekdays, but many times I'm alone at home and I have to cook for one. OK, cooking for one doesn't sound like fun, because I do like the company and sharing the food I cook with my friends.

But every now and then it's nice to be alone and enjoy dinner just by myself. I can cook whatever I want and not having to worry what my friends might not like or any substitutions because of allergies or dietary requirements; I can cook whenever I want without planning when people are going to arrive; and what's also fun about being by myself is I can put the music on whilst cooking, singing as loud as I want, and dancing and who's to judge?! no one (well, maybe my neighbours).

My favourite thing about cooking for one is I got to treat myself to a more extravagant ingredients, something I don't normally get when feeding a crowd, like monkfish.

I love monkfish. It has such a meaty texture. In this recipe, the monkfish fillet is grilled and then served with a fresh lemony mash, rocket salad and olive sauce, which is more like a salsa, that's made with black olives, chilli, garlic, parsley, celery heart, lemon juice, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. As Jamie says, "really, really good".


This is a beautiful recipe, for me anyway. I love everything here, the lemony mash (I love lemon), the black olive sauce (I am a freak for olives), rocket salad which I can eat all day long and of course, the monkfish.

And when a meal is this good, why would I want to share it?