Swordfish Puttanesca



We have talked about my favorite pasta sauce here before.

Puttanesca.
Made by salty ladies of the night.
Hooker's pasta. "puttane!"
Did I just call you a whore? I'm sorry.

This simple pantry sauce satisfies me like no other.
If you love olives, capers, anchovies and garlic (and come on, who doesn't?), then this is your sauce.

I never really follow a recipe, but I wrote one down years ago.
A handful of this, and a handful of that.

Saveur magazine had this genius idea to put it on swordfish! SOLD!



I used 2 types of olives, as I often do in my sauce. It's prettier and bolder. Use whatever type of olive you have (as long as they are not "ripe" olives from a can, different animal).

And the best part about the recipe were the leftovers.



I cubed the leftover fish into chunks like a stew and put it over pasta the next day.

Yum.

Swordfish Puttanesca: (adapted from Saveur)

4 swordfish steaks (about 6 oz. each and ½″ thick), skin removed
Kosher salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste
3 cloves garlic, finely chopped
2 anchovies in oil, finely chopped
28 oz. can whole peeled tomatoes in juice, crushed by hand
handful of manzanilla green olives, roughly chopped
handful of kalamata black olives, pitted and chopped
1/4 cup capers, rinsed and drained
1 tsp. crushed red chile flakes
3 tbsp. roughly chopped parsley
4 tsp. fresh lemon juice

Season the fish with kosher salt & pepper.

Heat a nonstick grill pan or skillet w/ oil and sear the fish on both sides, about 3 minutes per side, until they get nice color. Set fish aside. You will finish it later in the sauce.

In a large heavy skillet, start the sauce.
Heat the garlic and anchovies in olive oil for a minute until fragrant and add the tomatoes, breaking them up with the back of a wooden spoon.



Add in the olives, capers and chili flakes and simmer sauce for about 15 minutes until sauce is thickened and tomatoes are broken down.

Arrange the fish in the skillet with the sauce and cook another 5 minutes until fish looks done. This will depend on the thickness of the fish (swordfish sometimes tends to be very dense), so watch the time.



Squeeze lemon juice on top of the fish and garnish with fresh parsley in big bowls.

Fabulous and easy!

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Comments

Patsyk said…
That sauce has my mouth watering and it's no where close to lunch or dinner-time!
Ciao Chow Linda said…
Now you're talking. My kind of meal. just like being in Sicily. But you can keep the leftovers. i hate leftover fish of any kind.
The JR said…
I started adding the anchovies after reading about them from you.

Glad I read it.
love cooking said…
Wow… This looks really nice. The sauce is full of flavors. It probably matches very well with lamb. :)
Swordfish, something I don't buy often, but now you got me going. I love this sauce, but you know how I feel about anchovies, I know, I know I'm crazy!