Sandwich - Grilled Swordfish

Pictured here is the original meal we prepared centered on beautifully grilled, beautifully sauced swordfish, a "swordfish steak," in fact. The original grilling can be found here, Grilled Swordfish.

Hard to imagine that there would be any leftover swordfish steak from a meal like this. Well, not exactly one meal like this, but, say, a large dinner party where you served a bunch of people plates like this one. Even then, though, it is hard to imagine that there would be any leftover swordfish steak.

But let's pretend. Or let's assume that we have grilled a nice piece of swordfish like this just to make a sandwich out of it. Maybe that is more realistic.

At any rate, having "extra" swordfish could happen.

Grilled swordfish sandwich.

Let's start by slicing our leftover swordfish steak into strips that will fit on the sourdough baguette we've selected for the top and the bottom of what is going to be an absolutely delicious sandwich. A rare treat -- when's the last time you've had one of these?

The next thing we want to do is put those strips back in the pan that has the marinade/sauce the swordfish steak was grilled in.

The sauce provided a magnificent flavor to the main dish when we served it, and we want here to capture any of that flavor which is left. The sauce has EVOO, soy sauce, and fresh-squeezed lemon juice. These classic elements will, of course, add not only moisture to our sandwich but loads of taste. (For EVOO, click here.)

Put each piece in there, one by one, and coat it with the sauce.

The bread here is sourdough and the bread has been grilled. The grilling is not absolutely necessary, but the grilling or toasting of the bread adds a surprising amount of flavor to the sourdough we are using here, as in fact it would to just about any type of bread we cared to use.

That's a grilled heirloom tomato, or rather part of one, there in the picture. Grilled heirloom tomato goes with just about everything, except maybe ice cream.* For the grilling of heirlooms, see Grilled Heirlooms. We have also added a couple of baby carrots that were grilled along with the swordfish last night, but which somehow escaped being eaten. There are a few other escapees we've added here as well -- the more the merrier.

Ladle the sauce which remains in the pan over the strips piled up on the bread. Get the bread wet with the sauce, if possible.

* there's a thought! Don't you think: some culinary experimentalist should check out various sorbets and ice creams with grilled tomato. Or is that too crazy? Comment below -- please!

Here we have moved on to the most important step -- the eating phase of this prepation. In fact, it was pretty simple to arrive at this step, but please do not underestimate it because it was so simple.

Don't underestimate it -- because the net result is pretty mouth-watering, and that is the objective we always want to achieve in preparing any meal.

Imagine that sandwich picture here for lunch.

What a lunch! It may be difficult to get our mouth around this monster, but there's no question but that we are going to try! Press the whole thing together when you bring it to your mouth. Wetting the bread with the sauce (see above) helps with the pressing together.

Incidentally,if you don't have any of the sauce from last night's dinner left over, you can spread mayo on one side of the bread and Dijon mustard (regular or coarse ground) on the other side of the bread -- those two additions constitute a sort of quasi-sauce that really goes well with something like swordfish. Squeezing some fresh lemon or lime juice on the fish as well would be highly recommended, as would coarse ground salt and coarse ground pepper.

Swordfish, of course, is the star of the show here (and perhaps the sauce can be compared to the limelight which illuminates our star). But the Parting Facts we have about that wonderful food star are best explained in our treatment of Grilled Swordfish, a link to which can be found in Lee White's Department Store, which is organized by floor -- seafood is found in the seafood emporium on the first floor.

Let us therefore here provide some facts about the supporting player in this drama, the bread that makes this sandwich. One problem, though. To explain sourdough bread practically requires a PhD in chemistry -- "Sourdough is a mixture of flour and water containing a culture of 'lactic acid bacteria and yeast' -- not just any culture, mind you, but a stable one. Yeast here produces carbon dioxide which leavens the dough, and the bacteria produce lactic acid -- and that acid, amazingly, gives flavor to the bread which is made from this dough. Apparently it does this by metabolizing sugars which the yeast cannot (metabolize, that is). Metabolizing is not confined to the lactic acid, however, for the yeast also metabolizes byproducts of the lactic acid fermentation."

You thought, perhaps, that I was kidding about that PhD? Well, in fact the lactic acid bacteria have been divided into three separate groups: Group A, which are "obligately homofermentative"; Group B, which are "facultatively heterofermentative," and Group C, which are "obligately heterofermentative."

Pretty complicated, but all this complication is worth it because the end result is absolutely delicious -- particularly when topped with some grilled swordfish.

Pictures! Pictures! Pictures!

Series within series, actually. Food & Cooking, for example, then -- within that -- series on vegetables, fruits, seafood, meat, etc. Books, too. Ideas, too. Travel, too. Key virtues:. pictures, clear step-by-step text. Delicious -- whether foods or ideas! All of the series, and all of the items in each series, can be found, organized by floor, at this link: Lee White's Department Store. Happy shopping! -- everything is for free!

Real Meal. Unlike fancy food mags, where images are hyped and food itself is secondary, all pix shown here are from a real meal, prepared and eaten by me and my friends. No throwing anything away till perfection is achieved. This is the real deal --- a Real Meal.