Fresh Fish - Final Leg Revisited

1˚00.144 S, 42˚21.282 W

As Wes noted in his “Bloody Mess” post on predictwind.com, it took us 26 days and 4500 miles before we caught our first game fish, which was a 175-pound swordfish.

The narrow deck of a catamaran isn't such a great place for dealing a five foot-long thrashing apex predator

Dan and Auden with the head and tail of the marlin after it had been cut up for meat

That yielded close to 50 pounds of meat:

We're going to be eating marlin for awhile...

With so much fish, I had to get a little creative with different ways to prepare it. I’d never cooked swordfish before, so I started with just simple pan-fried steaks in olive oil, sprinkled with salt, black pepper and some lemon juice. I overcooked them slightly, but it was a good way to get through a lot of fish.

We had two cans of lychee fruit on board, and at some point earlier in the trip while we were still dreaming of catching a fish, I had done an internet search for a lychee salsa. That lead me down an internet rabbit hole, where I found a recipe for lychee ceviche. I had to modify it based on the ingredients we had on board, and ended up with this:

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 pound marlin, cut into bite-sized cubes
  • 1/4 cup fresh lime juice (from 2-3 limes)
  • 1/4 cup fresh lemon juice (from 2 lemons)
  • 2-3 spicy sweet pickled red peppers, sliced into thin strips
  • 8-10 fresh or canned lychee*, peeled, pitted, and cut into wedges (about 1/2 cup total)
  • 1/4 red onion, thinly sliced
  • 1/4 cup packed fresh cilantro, roughly chopped
  • 1/4 teaspoon grated fresh ginger
  • 1 tablespoon simple syrup or reserved lychee syrup
  • flake sea salt, for garnish

Directions:

  1. Season fish with sea salt, then combine with lemon and lime juice in a bowl. Add peppers and toss to combine. Cover and refrigerate for 15 to 20 minutes, stirring once or twice, until fish is just opaque on the outside.
  2. Add lychee, red onion, chopped cilantro, ginger, and simple syrup and toss to combine.
  3. Divide among serving bowls, spooning more juice over top as desired. Sprinkle with flake salt and garnish with more cilantro, as desired.

I was quite pleased with the results. The acid in the lemon and lime juice actually “cooks” the fish, so if you’re someone who doesn’t like the thought of raw fish, perhaps give ceviche a try.

A day or two later, we caught a nice hefty yellow fin tuna, which yielded another batch of delectable meat. Wes made crusted tuna steaks with one of the fillets:

In spite of slicing the fillet with a bread knife, Wes's creation turned out quite well

Continuing with the raw fish theme, I made a spicy tuna tartare that also turned out pretty well:

Ingredients:

  • 1/2 cup mayonnaise
  • 2 tablespoons Sriracha
  • 1 teaspoon sesame oil
  • 3/4 pound piece of really fresh tuna from a reliable source (we considered Auden to be a reliable source, especially since we watched him reel in the fish)
  • 1/4 cup finely diced red onion
  • 1 not-too-large clove of garlic, minced

Directions:

  1. Mix first three ingredients in a small bowl and set aside.
  2. Dice up the tuna as finely as you can without shredding it.
  3. Place tuna into a medium-sized bowl, add the onion and garlic, and then add some of the Sriracha mayo (maybe 2 tablespoons) and start to gently mix. Add more of the Sriracha mayo, bit by bit, until you get a taste and consistency you like. Save the leftover Sriracha mayo for another dish!
  4. Serve with good quality taco chips or fried wonton skins for scooping. You can also put the mixture into a cone of seaweed.

By the time we reached Grenada, we still had uneaten fish, so we gave it to Tom, one of the first drivers we had on the island.