Grilled Swordfish

Gorgeous photo and recipe found here.

The other day, I was making my trusty Lentil Soup recipe, which is from my Ina Garten Barefoot Contessa cookbook. While paging through, I saw a recipe for swordfish with tomato and capers that sounded good, and I thought I might make it. When I went to make a grocery list, however, I was upstairs at my desk, and my cookbook was downstairs, and I googled Ina Garten swordfish, and got this recipe. It looked even better to me than the one in the cookbook, so I decided to make this one instead.

The original recipe is by Marcella Hazan, and is almost, but not exactly the same. The differences I see are that Marcella’s recipe calls for 2 teaspoons of table salt, which all goes in the dressing. Ina’s recipe calls for 1 tablespoon of kosher salt in the dressing, plus you salt the fish before you grill it, PLUS you salt and pepper it after grilling. That’s a lot of salt! She also adds lemon zest and arugula. I neglected to zest my lemon prior to juicing it, so no zest went into my recipe. The link above also includes a recipe for the corn dish shown, but I microwaved a quinoa veggie dish that I got in the frozen section at Whole Foods, and cooked some frozen peas. Did I mention that Ted is working from home now, which means he is doing radio at the kitchen table while I am 10 feet away cooking dinner? I have to keep things simple. Though truthfully, the corn recipe does look pretty simple, and pretty good. I just try not to make things that sizzle on the stove, as the sound really carries into his mic.

So, that’s a long way of saying, here is a recipe for you, for grilled swordfish, that was DELICIOUS. The key was that after you remove the fish from the grill, you poke some holes in it, and then spoon the sauce over, and let it rest a bit so the sauce can get into the fish. Really good, and I liked the addition of arugula, and it probably would have been good with lemon zest, but it was nice without too.

If you’re so inclined, you can see a video of someone making the original recipe, here, and of course you can find Ina Garten’s at Food Network, here. Marvel at the salt. My version has much less than either recipe, but still had plenty for us.

Sicilian Grilled Swordfish

Ingredients:

• 2-3 tbsp freshly squeezed lemon juice (I just used the juice of one juicy lemon, so it was closer to 2 1/2 tbsp)
• 1/4 cup good olive oil (We are liking this local one)
• 2 tsp fresh oregano, chopped (you can use 1 tsp dried if you don’t have fresh)
• Pinch of red pepper flakes
• Kosher salt and ground black pepper
• 2 swordfish steaks (I like mine thin, not a big fan of thick fish or meat generally)
• 4 ounces baby arugula
• Grated zest of 1 lemon (I omitted this)

Directions:

Turn grill on, high heat.

Salt and pepper the swordfish steaks on both sides.

Whisk lemon juice with about 1 tsp kosher salt, then mix in oregano, pepper, and olive oil.

Grill the swordfish steaks 2-3 minutes per side. (I have trouble with fish sticking to the grill, so I put some aluminum foil that I have sprayed with cooking oil on the grill, then I cook the fish on that. You don’t get the beautiful grill marks, but you don’t lose half of your expensive fish either!)

Remove fish from grill onto a plate, then poke all over with a fork or toothpick, and pour the lemon sauce on the hot fish. Cover with tin foil and let rest for 5 minutes. Serve with handfuls of fresh arugula on top.