Grilled Swordfish With Smoky Tomato-Anchovy Salsa Recipe (2024)

3/4" steak, 4 mins a side = overdone!

Over the years, I've found the most reliable way to grill or sauté fish is in a pre-heated cast iron skillet over medium/medium high heat, for between 3 and a half and 4 minutes per side per inch of thickness. In other words, for a ¾ inch thick swordfish steak, total cooking time would be 8 x ¾ or 6 minutes total, somewhere around 3 minutes per side. I've heard this sometimes called the "Canadian fisheries" method and it gives consistently good results.

Completely disagree - it's a bright flavorful vinaigrette that sets the fish off beautifully. Used Cento tomato paste (tube) and anchovy paste instead of minced anchovies. Cooked the fish to internal temp of just barely 125 F - very moist.

Swordfish is usually overdone. I cooked it to 125 F and it was done and wonderfully juicy.

The salsa is the justification for this recipe. I'm going to see how many other proteins it goes with. I served the swordfish on a bed of baby arugula and baby spinach with lots and lots of salsa. Even my husband who isn't usually crazy about this kind of thing agreed that it grows on you with each bite. I'll confess to soaking the chopped red onion in water to lessen the bite which may have made the difference.

How about a wilted salsa? Put the garlic into some hot oil for a minute or less, throw in a little preserved lemon (I'm always trying to find new uses for it), then agrodolce pimenton and your halved cherry tomatoes. Some fresh marjoram. Add vinegar and reduce slightly. The tomatoes should be beginning to melt and get juicy. Adjust salt with fish sauce. No tomato paste, please. The other chopped veggies are nice, but the point is really the sweet-sour tomato-vinegar brightness on your fish.

We do three minutes per side.

THis why I always use a meat thermometer :))

We really enjoyed this dish. Improvised a bit. Did not have the peppers called for so used some canned chipotle peppers in adobo sauce. Cut the onion in half. Used both tomato paste and anchovy paste and it was marvelous. Cooked halibut on grill pan on stove for about 3-4 mins per side and it was perfect. Serving over arugula was great. We ate with roasted Delicata squash and the sweetness of the sauce cut the halibut spiciness nicely.

Didn’t have any peppers or anchovy, so added capers and Worcestershire sauce, used half a yellow pepper and was super delish. Sword 3minutes per side. Charlie loved it!

Absolutely delicious!!!!So much smoke when the olive oil soaked swordfish hit the stovetop cast iron grill. We opened windows and turned on ceiling fans to help clear the air. Absolutely worth the smokiness!

Delish! I felt like we were in Catalonia, Spain. Don't skip the Anchovies!

Was delicious. Salsa was great. Added some honey. The chicken was delicious and great!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

It was tasty but the raw onion disagrees with us. I cooked the salsa remaining after we ate too time the onion & garlic down. The result is fabulous. Used it with some cheddar cheese & cilantro in an omelet the next morning. With use the cooked salsa with remaining swordfish to make tacos.

Didn't have anchovies, so I used some anchovy paste. Instead of the Fresno chiles, I used one jalapeño pepper, because that's what I had. It was absolutely delicious!

An excellent salsa recipe which tasted great on swordfish steaks grilled for 10 minutes in total on a cool night. I used a different smoked Spanish paprika than the one called for, but it also produced a wonderful additional layer of smoky flavor to the salsa. There's not just the raw crunch from the vegetables, low heat from the chilis, muted bite from the vinegared onions, and sweetness from tomatoes. The smokes fuses it all together along with letting it set for a while.

Excellent recipe, though I did tweak a bit. And 3 minutes per side was fine for my swordfish which was pretty thick. I also had a beautiful piece of sockeye salmon, which was great with this, too. However, I did add some lemon juice and lemon zest to the salsa to brighten it up a bit. Letting it sit for a good bit really helped blend the flavors and softened up the peppers a bit, as well. I loved it fresh, but I'm sure it would be great heated through, too. Husband loved it!

I used my food processor and pulsed the tomatoes a few times...perfect!

This was so good - added a big spoonful of Portuguese pepper paste as well.

Fantastic. Cooked the swordfish in a non stick pan with a bit of evoo until it reached 125. still moist. Only used about 1 Tbspn of evoo in the relish and it was amazing, mostly just chopped veggies. Did not add anchovies on top of relish. Overall, a winner.

We liked this "salsa" very much, husband ate leftover with a spoon - we were satisfied with fewer fresh tomatoes (all we had) tho the fresh tomatoes are needed to brighten the mix. I agree with the verdict that 4 min per side (at least on the preheated cast iron we used) was rather too much; for those of us who like the creamy juicy inner texture of swordfish, waiting for liquid to show was a bit too late. I will try the thermometer next time and cut back my expected cooktime by a couple mins.

Fresh oregano added at the end really made this dish pop. Served with grilled eggplant as a side.

Made this and found it delicious! Probably only would have used the 1/2 olive oil, but overall great! I pan fried the swordfish in a cast iron skillet as another commenter recommended. Thanks for the recipe NYT cooking!