Fresh Counts

Because we believe fish and meat should be eaten sparingly, we prefer to eat them -- especially fish -- less often but of really good quality. And since we have figured out how to care for fish (basically, concentrating on not drying it out), we use simple recipes that allow the quality of the fish itself to dominate.

Today Pam found a simple tuna-steak recipe on the Old Bay web site. We have been checking lately because a friend of ours does promotional work for this venerable company whose product is the national spice of Maryland. (Massachusetts might be the "Bay State," but the real Bay is the Chesapeake, as we all know).

As we've mentioned before, "fresh fish" equals "drive to Mansfield" in our house, where Fresh Catch, Inc. never fails to live up to its name. I did a few errands in the area (such as getting a PFD for my new whaling hobby), making the fish catch last so I could bring it right home to refrigeration.

When dinner time came, we combined 1/4 cup olive oil with a generous dollop of Old Bay (true Marylanders do not need to measure such things), some parsley from our garden, and the juice of two limes. I marinaded a large, fresh swordfish steak in this mixture, after piercing it a few times so that the flavor would permeate.

Then Pam began to cook potatoes from our farm box, giving just enough time for the flavors to meld. The recipe calls for use of a grill, which would have been nice in better weather, but I used our indispensable cast-iron skillet with a little bit of chipotle olive oil from our favorite oil and vinegar emporium (in Maryland, natch).

Cooking it for about 10 minutes over high heat with this simple preparation allowed the fish itself to dominate -- as tender and flavorful as it was nutritious. As I let the fish rest, Pam had mashed the potatoes with regional butter and local milk, and then remembered to retrieve the local cranberries I had prepared with decidedly non-local whiskey last week.

We very much enjoyed the meal with our home-made Chardonnay. We have recently decided, by the way, that although we very much enjoy our red wine, we are going to leave whites to our local experts.