Three Layer Cake

Linguine with Swordfish

It would have made much more sense this week to publish a recipe with cheese in it, for Catherine Levy's love for cheese, but I will save that for another time.  Instead, I've included this recipe, which reminds me of a small restaurant in a hillside town in Sicily named Erice.  The restaurant serves a swordfish steak which is la fine del mondo  (the end of the world, in Italian, used to describe something that's sooooooooo good...).   It really doesn't get any better than that!  We are considering going back to Sicily JUST to eat there again.  If you go to Erice and ask "what's the best place to eat around here"?  They will all tell you this place, unless of course you speak to the wrong woman...

My recipe has nothing to do with the way they prepare their swordfish though, which I believe is marinated in milk before cooking.  Mine is just a simple recipe which comes out different every time I prepare it, but...  well, keep trying til you get it the way you like it.

• 250g egg pasta (fresh or dried)
• 1 small white onion diced finely
• 2 cloves of garlic, crushed
  
• 50g cherry tomatoes (a handful of tomatoes)
• 150-200g  swordfish steak trimmed and cut into cubes
• 1/2 cup white wine

Saute onion and garlic in olive oil.  Add tomatoes, sliced in half.  After about seven minutes, discard the garlic, add swordfish cubes and white wine.  Salt and pepper to taste.  Cook until swordfish is done, making sure not to overcook.  (No time listed for this, stay over the pan and test it after about ten minutes and then gauge the remaining time!)  Serves four.

You can use more tomatoes if you like, but too tomatoey for me is too much. The onions should not overpower it, nor should the tomatoes.

Photo:  fishing boats in Castellammare del Golfo, near Trapani, by Steve Geer