Swordfish Involtini

One of my birthday presents finally arrived. Andrew picked me up a subscription to La Cucina Italiana, my favorite food magazine of all time. Six to eight weeks they said. I sat down eagerly to read it. The couch becoming home to my backside and Roma, complete with blanket and a mug of tea. I am one of those compulsive readers, devouring every word on every page.

The content has a tendency to push me a bit out of my comfort zone in terms of cooking ability. My taste buds are never intimidated. I would love to make most things, I just never have the patience to seek out the ingredients or set aside the necessary time to out in the work to churn out some of these gems. Everything I have made from the magazine or website, though, has been good or better. I have yet to be disappointed.

Well, I take that back. While reading through the letter from the editor in the most recent issue, I was super bummed to read that I was holding the last one they would ever publish in America. I re-read it at least three times, exclaiming a “wtf” to Andrew before continuing through each page. I checked the website, and as of yet I don’t see any confirmation of what was written. You can still subscribe as far as I can tell. So I’m utterly confused. I would like the letter to be wrong. There has been very little press about it, so yeah.

That won’t stop me from trolling their website no matter what happens [assuming they don’t can that, too]. That’s where this swordfish came from. I troll their website hard. This savory gem is all kinds of herby. The stuffing is sweet and savory. The key is getting a thin enough cut of fish. I had two huge steaks and cut them in half myself, but it was still too thick. It increased the baking time by almost double. I’d have the butcher or fishmonger or whoever trim it up for me next time. They have the skills. Might as well use them. majorjam was a first for me. I don’t think I’ve bought or used it before, but I like it. It pairs well with the pine nuts, and really let’s you taste the clean fish flavor of the swordfish.

Inspiration: La Cucina Italiana

Ingredients

• 1 1/2 pounds swordfish steaks, cut into four 1/3″ slices
• 1 cup tomato sauce
• 2 slices dry crusty bread
• 1/2 cup flat leaf parsley, chopped
• 1/3 cup pine nuts
• 1/4 cup golden raisins
• 4 sprigs of, plus 1/2 teaspoon chopped, majoram
• 2 tablespoons olive oil
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Heat your oven to 400° and oil a baking dish — probably like 11″x7″ or so. Put the bread in a food processor and pulse until you have dry crumbs. Add the parsley, pine nuts, golden raisins, and the 1/2 teaspoon of marjoram. Pulse until combined in a nice stuffing texture. Add the olive oil and pulse again.

Season both sides of the fish with salt and pepper before spreading the stuffing mixture equally on each piece of fish. If you have extras, you can add it to the tops of the fish. Roll the fish up and place into your baking dish. Put the seam side down, and you shouldn’t have to use a toothpick to hold it all together. Sprinkle any remaining stuffing on the top. Spoon the tomato sauce across all pieces of fish. Drizzle with a little bit of oil and top each rolled fish with a sprig of marjoram.

Bake until the fish is cooked through. Ideally it’ll be 12-15 minutes, but if you go thicker than 1/3″, like I did, it’ll take closer to 30. Serve immediately. No one likes gummy fish.