Swordfish

I've always enjoyed swordfish, but we went through a lag about not buying it for a while.

I think there is a certain joy to going to your fish place and knowing that everything is well marked and you know that it was raised sustainably or wild caught. Well, I guess that is assuming that Whole Foods is telling the truth.

Granted, there is also a certain joy to being able to get whole fishes whenever you want, but the price for that is bad fish butchery.

Anyway.

We were at Whole Foods looking over the fish counter and the swordfish looked pretty good. I selected a good-lookin' piece -- the best one, the lady next to me agreed -- and we took it home.

The only swordfish recipe we've had in the past is from the Michael Chiarello Casual Cooking which calls for puttanesca. I recall Josh wasn't a big fan of the puttanesca in general, never really wanting it whenever I suggested it. So with that, I assume he wasn't a fan. So I set out looking at all our other cookbooks that might have had a recipe. Let me tell you, when you are looking for recipes, it's a lot of books to open.

I settled on a recipe from My Calabrian Kitchen which simply called for s+p on the swordfish then lemon juice, olive oil, capers, parsley, and basically poaching the fish so that it lends its own liquid as the sauce. Unfortunately, it also wanted me to halve the swordfish so it was 3/8" thick and then poach it in a double broiler. Ugh!

So I improvised. I looked up the Chiarello recipe for timing, which for him was 4 minutes on the stove and then finish in the oven. I set the oven for 400 degrees and put together my little fish pan and covered it tightly with foil.

I checked it every three minutes after the first ten minutes. It seemed to take forever. But finally it was done, and you know, it was worth it.

I also sauteed some green beans and a selection of fresh farmers market veggies. It turned out pretty damn well. Josh is still talking about it.