Swordfish summer

When you have fresh mint and fresh green chiles in the fridge you put them on everything that might play nice with mint and chiles. So that's what's dressing up these swordfish cubes. Also cilantro, garlic, ginger, salt, pepper, fish sauce, and peanut oil. As Richie Cunningham said, "Yowza!"

I marinated these for a couple of hours and grilled them over very hot charcoal. Swordfish is an excellent fish to treat aggressively since it's not very delicate in flavor or texture like halibut and doesn't have a distinctive, assertive flavor like salmon or tuna. I wouldn't do the heavy marinade treatment to any of those fish, which I believe should be treated far more respectfully. The truth is I don't really respect swordfish. I don't go crazy for it, I don't crave it, I don't worship it. But I do like to eat it in the summertime since its firm texture holds up to grilling so nicely. And I like grilling because it gives me an opportunity to spend ten minutes of a summer evening standing around the front porch drinking beer and chatting with neighbors and passersby. Now my 20 lb. bag of charcoal is just about empty. Everything this week feels like an ending.

I served these with a wedge of lime, a golden tomato salad, and (what else?) lime-scented rice. Happy weekend.