Probably the thing I dread cooking the most is fish. If you’re like me, you never know when it is done and because of that one of two things almost always happens – you undercook it or you overcook it. Undercooking fish, well lets not even go there, too scary to even think about the issues it can cause. And overcooking fish, well that’s even worse since normally you pay a pretty penny for the fish and eating dried out rubber is something no one savors.  But this week I hit the jackpot and actually cooked some swordfish steaks perfectly. What’s my trick… luck, total luck.

I find that at times cooking can be a waiting game, you wait and see how many times you can cook something before you get it right, that is if you don’t lose interest in it first. I’ve mastered the art of the juicy boneless chicken breast, the juicy and tender pork loin roast, the tender and crisp beef and pea pods stir  fry, but fish has always been the bane of my existence until just recently.

My saga began when I purchased a couple of swordfish steaks at Whole Foods (the pressure is already on because the wallet took a sizable hit on them). I began the process of pouring over recipes to determine the best way to cook them on my stove top grill pan. I found a great recipe at allrecipes.com (I will share below) for a simple marinade and started preparing the fish. The recipe was easy with clear cooking instructions. All you have to do is follow them, right? Wrong.

I have finally learned to trust my judgement when cooking and now have enough knowledge just to be dangerous. It occurred to me that the recipe was written for swordfish cooked on an outside grill with times of 5-6 minutes per side. Cooking it inside would take less time, how much to be exact I wasn’t sure. But gone are the days of just blindly following a recipe. I have arrived! After marinating them for an hour, I preheated my stove top grill and began grilling. I flipped them at 4 1/2 minutes and had fabulous grill marks. I cooked them for another 4 1/2 minutes and clear juices began to rise to the top of the steaks. Out of the pan they came and voila, perfect indoor grilled marinated swordfish steaks! The steaks were about an inch think and they were juicy, tender but not underdone.

So after many tries the formula for grilled swordfish steaks is emblazoned in my mind. Yahoo, one fish down, so many more to go. But I can tell you first hand that there is nothing as good as perfectly cooked grilled swordfish steaks. Enjoy the recipe!

Grilled Swordfish with pasta and parmesan roasted asparagus.