En garde, fishy!

I tried my hand at grilling some fresh fish last night. Seeing that that stuff is readily available around here, how could I resist?

Amanda and I went to the local Farmer's Market (see previous post), and selected a mighty fine hunk of fresh swordfish. FRESH. No "fishy" smell. We took a couple of quick cooking tips from the fishmonger, and set off for our dinner experiment.

The method was pretty simple. I have a small gas grill that I pre-heated to rocket-hot. I patted down the fish steak with with a paper towel, and then applied a liberal coating of extra virgin olive oil. I sprinkled both sides with kosher salt, and then drizzled a little not-from-concentrate orange juice over it. I topped it off with a few orange slices, and moved to the grill.

I turned down the heat to about medium before putting the fish down. A good trick here is to "wiggle" the fish back-and-forth along the grate lines a bit just after you set it on the grill. This along with the rocket-hot surface and the olive oil on the fish will keep it from sticking. After about 5-6 minutes I checked the underside and saw some good grill marks, so I flipped it over, wiggling again, and lowered the heat just a touch. I also moved the orange slices onto the grill while flipping the fish, which seard them a bit and got the juices flowing more.

After another 6-8 minutes I had a good matching sear on the other side, and I could see the flesh beginning to pull apart. The nice thing about swordfish is how dense it is. You get the lightness of a good white fish, but you can actually pick up the done steak off of the grill with tongs without it falling apart.

The finished product was fantastic! Lightly seasoned and perfectly charred, with a delectible resistence in the bite that you just don't get from other white fish. I will DEFINITELY be working with swordfish again.