The nice thing about cooking vacation memories is that even after having returned two months ago, it still keeps the memories fresh. When I saw Spaghetti alla Carbonara di Mare on the menu of La Perla in Calasetta on Sardinia, … Continue reading Spaghetti alla Carbonara di Mare
When I saw swordfish on sale at the market, I knew what we were going to have for dinner. I love swordfish, but it is often hard to get it fresh (frozen means it will be dry) and for a … Continue reading Grilled Swordfish with Ratatouille
Breadcrumbs are often used in Sicilian cuisine to provide texture to antipasti such as sarde beccafico, primi piatti such as pasta with anchovies and broccoli, and secondi such as cotoletta alla palermitana. The latter dish inspired me to prepare swordfish … Continue reading Swordfish Palermitana (Pesce Spada alla Palermitana)
When we paid Jo of My Home Food That’s Amore a visit this summer, she gave us some goodies including a box of calamarata pasta. Thanks, Jo! The name of this pasta sounds like calamari, because these pasta rings resemble … Continue reading Calamarata Pasta with Swordfish Ragù (Calamarata con Ragù di Pesce Spada)
Fish soup is prepared all along the Mediterranean coast. There are many varieties such as bouillabaisse from France and zarzuela from Spain. Cacciccuo alla Livornese is a fish soup from the Tuscan coast that has three distinguishing features: it is made with … Continue reading Cacciucco (Tuscan Seafood Soup)
It is great to live on a latitude of 52 degrees in summer, because we get so much sunlight in the evenings. Now it’s payback time however, as the sun sets very early. When I saw fresh swordfish at the fishmonger (rather than frozen, which is usual), I decided to make this salad to bring a bit of the brightness of summer into the dark winter. The swordfish is served raw in this salad. If you don’t like that, you could briefly sear it in olive oil over very high heat and still serve it with a fennel and orange salad. Continue reading “Swordish, Fennel and Orange Salad”
Even though I didn’t actually have this dish while I was in Sicily recently, I did see it on menus everywhere and I thought it would be appropriate to include it in the series of Sicilian recipes I’m doing. The swordfish is cooked in a tomato sauce bursting with flavor of onions, garlic, anchovies, capers, olives, and cayenne pepper. This is an easy dish to make, as long as you lower the heat (or even turn it off) when you finish cooking the fish to avoid overcooking it. Continue reading “Swordfish Sicilian Style (Pesce Spada alla Siciliana)”
Swordfish is more meaty than most other fishes. So meaty in fact, that if the swordfish is really fresh and you cut away the ‘blood meat’, you could probably fool someone into thinking he’s eating meat rather than fish. There is one issue with swordfish and that is that it is often overcooked and dry. With swordfish this happens even more often that with other types of fish. By cooking the swordfish sous-vide, it will be very tender and juicy without risk of overcooking. The nice thing about cooking fish sous-vide is that it only takes a short time, so it is possible to cook the fish sous-vide without having a sous-vide water bath. You only need a digital thermometer for this to work. Continue reading “Swordfish Salmoriglio”
Welcome to Stefan’s Gourmet Blog! If you like what you see here, you can sign up on the sidebar to receive an email whenever I post a new recipe. In Italy I always like swordfish carpaccio as antipasto, but unfortunately fresh swordfish is not available in the Netherlands. I decided to try making it with frozen swordfish, and it was certainly good enough to make it again! I am usually not a big fan of frozen fish since it makes the fish dry, but for this preparation it is OK. As with many antipasti, you just need good olive … Continue reading Swordfish Carpaccio (Carpaccio di pesce spada)
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