herb-breaded swordfish; grilled eggplant & tomato

swordfish_eggplant_tomato

The swordfish recipe is a Sicilian masterpiece, the vegetables were also Italian, and treated as such, perhaps in a generally mid-peninsular manner; the wine was from La Marche, and the music was Lombardy-Venetian.  The table was Chelsean.

I don’t think I’ve ever before prepared swordfish in the Sicilian style (Trancia di Pesce Spada alla Siciliana), as described by Kyle Phillips, but I now regret my neglect, and I resolve to make up for it, but with the inclusion, whenever possible, of the very American ingredient, ramp fruit.

It was damn good.

  • one inch-thick, one pound swordfish steak from P.E. & D.D. Seafood (note to purse: it was on sale this Monday), cut into two pieces, briefly marinated in a mixture of olive oil, crushed ramp fruit from Berried Treasures and chopped fresh oregano leaves from Stokes Farm, then drained well and rolled in dried bread crumbs, fried in a hot cast iron pan for about 4 minutes on each side, salted, sprinkled with a little lemon juice and drizzled with olive oil before serving
  • two tightly-curved Japanese eggplant from Berried Treasures,, split ‘lengthwise’, scored, brushed with a mixture of oil, finely-chopped early garlic, also from Berried Treasures, and basil leaves torn from a Full Bloom Market Garden plant from Whole Foods, then seasoned with salt and pepper, and pan-grilled, turning once, arranged on plates almost as yin and yang
  • one seasoned Sheboygan ‘pink paste’ tomato from Queens County Farm, pan grilled, finished with a dab of olive oil and a bit of balsamic vinegar, placed on the plates in the middle of the eggplant
  • the wine was a white Italian, Le Salse Verdicchio di Matelica 2014
  • the music was a mid-seventeenth century Venetian masterpiece, Francesco Cavalli’s ‘La Calisto‘, conducted by René Jacobs