Blackened Fish

Here's an Earth Day fun fact for you via Mario Batali.  The cattle industry produces more greenhouse gas emissions than our transportation vehicles.  His point being, if we all ate a little less meat and a little more vegetables or fish, we could help the Earth as well as ourselves.  Interesting food for thought.

In the spirit of that, I should be bringing you a vegetable dish but alas, I felt like fish.  It's my blog and I can cook what I want to.  I love teaching my clients how to cook fish because I find more than any other food group, people are intimidated by fish.  Most people have one or two fish recipes they can pull off and then they're stuck.

This is simple.  3 ingredients. 1 pan. Done and done.  Blackened fish, it's highly seasoned but not spicy (at least my blend wasn't).  A little Cajun seasoning for flava.  Boo-yah!  You have the spiced crusty outside contrasting with the tender fish inside.  This is an especially good dish for people who are on the fence about fish since the bold spices are the star.  One note, this smokes up the joint so open the windows or you could cook it outside.

Here's a tip of the day:  Fish takes about 8 minutes per inch of thickness to cook. 

Blackened Swordfish
Serves 1-2

1 Swordfish steak
1T unsalted butter, melted
2T Blackened Cajun seasoning (I used Paul Prudhomme's)

1.  Heat a cast iron skillet over high heat for 10 minutes.
2.  Using a pastry brush, brush melted butter on both sides of swordfish.
3.  Coat fish with seasoning.  Pat it on and be generous, you should not see fish peeking through.
4.  Add to hot pan and cook about 4 minutes on each side if steaks are around an inch thick.