Grilled Jerk Swordfish

[Mike]

We marinate swordfish steaks in flavored lime juice and then coat with a jerk-style rub. We grill them until tender and moist and serve with a fruit salsa.

Serves: 3
Preparation Time: 20 minutes
Cooking Time: 10 minutes

Ingredients:

1 pound fish, 1 swordfish steak
2 cloves garlic
2 medium limes
3 medium cilantro stems
1 medium scallion
1 medium chile pepper, green jalapeño
½ teaspoon thyme, dried
1/8 teaspoon cinnamon, ground
2 whole allspice, berries
1/8 teaspoon cloves, ground
½ teaspoon brown sugar, light, packed
¼ teaspoon salt, kosher
black pepper, freshly ground
1 inch ginger, fresh
1 tablespoon oil, olive
We start by making the marinade while our fish is in the fridge. We smash and peel our garlic cloves and add them to a large bowl. Using our microplane grater, we zest the limes. We then cut them in half and squeeze their juice into the bowl. We rinse the cilantro stems, scallion, and jalapeño, and pat dry. We cut the scallion into thirds and cut around the seed pod of the jalapeño. We reserve the jalapeño flesh for another use, and add the cilantro stems, scallion pieces, and jalapeño seed pod to the bowl. We set aside for 10 minutes.

Meanwhile, we make the wet rub for the fish. In our mortar and pestle, we put the thyme, cinnamon, allspice, cloves, and brown sugar. We pound carefully, breaking up the whole allspice berries and any sugar clumps. We add the salt and lots of freshly ground black pepper. We pour the mix into a prep bowl.

We rinse and peel our small piece of ginger. Then, using our microplane grater again, we grate the ginger into the rub. We mix with a small spoon to make a wet paste.

We pre-heat our gas grill.

We remove the fish from the fridge, rinse it, and pat dry. We cut it into 3 pieces and place them in the marinade bowl. We turn the steaks over to coat both sides and set it aside for 5 minutes.

When the grill is hot, we remove the swordfish steaks from the marinade, pat dry with paper towels, and place them on a large plate. We rub the oil over the pieces and then coat them with the wet rub on all sides.

We grill for 4 minutes on each side, until just cooked through. We let the fish rest on a clean plate and then serve.

[RiskTaker]

Hey Mike:

Thanks for the jerked Swordfish recipe. Everyone at the party was impressed with the jerk recipe and how great the fish tasted! (Was it the fish or was it the chef? Perhaps a little of both.)

I doubled your recipe (mas o menos) for about 5 lbs. of swordfish so it was not too hot but the aromatics were amazing.

I scooped the paste out of the mortar to rub on the fish. The one lesson learned from this recipe is not to use your bare hands to rub the seasoning onto the fish: I could feel the heat under my fingernails for a day. And be careful not to touch your face either, which I did somehow.

I can't wait to try it again: on the fish that is!

A good recipe,

RiskTaker

[Uncle Buck]

How do you know if you caught the "jerk" swordfish? Maybe that's the fish that slashed all your other baits in the spread before getting snagged.

[veniceitaly]

tasty guys! I tried the recepe...with pieces of orange as well... and some white wine. Good mixture. to try. Serve with cold Muller Turgau if you can