Galets stuffed with monkfish and prawns

The first dish that Àngels Pallàs suggested for our Christmas meal is a delicious fish recipe presented in galets, one of the typical ingredients of Catalan Christmas cuisine. What she proposes is to make tasty seafood-stuffed galets. If you don't have galets, you can also use any pasta you have on hand, as long as it is very large and easy to stuff.

Ingredients:

• 20gr of butter
• One leek
• 75gr of peas
• 5 prawns
• 2 pieces of monkfish about one and a half finger-thick each
• Salt and pepper
• 100cc of white wine
• A pinch of dill
• Some slightly stale breadcrumbs
• Chopped garlic and parsley
• 10 0 12 Galets, the largest we can find (or any pasta we can stuff)

For the béchamel sauce:

• 40gr of butter
• 30gr of flour
• 250cc of milk
• 250cc of fish stock
• 1 teaspoon of lemon juice
• 1 tablespoon of romesco sauce
• Salt, pepper and nutmeg

Preparation:

1. Cook the galets by submerging them one by one so water enters their interior and they don't float. Once cooked al dente, leave them in cold water. It's important to cook a few extra in case some break. Once cool, remove them onto a plate with kitchen paper.
2. In a casserole we sauté the prawns with oil, season with salt and pepper and set aside.
3. We cut the white part of the leek into very small pieces and cook it in the same casserole with the butter and oil that we used to sauté the prawns.
4. When the leek is cooked, add the monkfish cut into diced pieces, seasoned, and the peeled prawns cut into small pieces.
5. Let the leek with the prawns and monkfish cook for a couple of minutes and add the white wine and the cooked peas.
6. Leave it for a couple more minutes, adjust salt and pepper, add the dill and set aside.
7. To make the béchamel, melt the butter in a saucepan and add the flour. When the flour is toasted, with a light beige color without reaching brown, add the fish stock and the milk and mix a bit. Season with salt and pepper, add a pinch of ground nutmeg and let it come to a light boil. Remove from the heat and add a tablespoon of romesco sauce and a teaspoon of lemon juice. If you make the sauce a day ahead it's important to leave it a bit thin since it will thicken by tomorrow.
8. Add two or three tablespoons of the béchamel to the casserole where we cooked the fish and mix.
9. Put a bit of béchamel in a baking dish to cover the bottom (you should only put a thin layer of béchamel).
10. Start filling the galets with the fish we cooked and place them in the baking dish. A small “trick” to keep the filling from coming out is to put some flour on a plate and “seal” the galet openings by pressing them into the plate with flour before placing them in the dish.
11. Once the galets are in the dish, add a little béchamel sauce on top, the breadcrumbs, parsley and garlic.
12. Cover the dish with aluminum foil and leave it in the oven preheated to 150º for about 15 minutes until it is gratinated.

Serve it right out of the oven. It can be accompanied by a seafood salad.