You know it's Sicilian when: Swordfish, Sicilian style

This is dedicated to my Italian teacher Jonathan, who is (or was) in Sicily and lamented to me a few days ago that he had eaten more eggplant in 4 days than he had eaten in 30 years.
Yes, young man, welcome to Sicilian cooking, where in summer, eggplant rules.
I've written before how certain names of dishes are "signifiers" (that's for you too, Jonathan): veronique and florentine are the examples I always use, so test your recall to see if you remember what they mean.
But there are also other combinations of ingredients that are evocative of, or signify, a place. While it has lost some of that "significance," think of corned beef and cabbage. Being more elaborate by adding a time, franks and beans with brown bread, on Saturday night (New England). Crepes with sour cherries. And so on and so forth.
When you see sweet and savory mixed together, in a main dish, you are looking at the area of the world where Sicily and the Middle East converge. You can get into loud, long arguments over who influenced whom, but the bottom line, is that in Sicilian cooking, in Syrian cooking, etc, you will see combinations of strong spices, and sweet elements. I see more honey in Syrian food, and more dried fruit in Sicilian, but they are always there. Think of the national pasta dish of Sicily (which I try to forget since I hate it: sardines, fennel, pine nuts, and currants). Within that combination, you have the markings of a Sicilian dish: pignoli. Dried fruit. An herb. And fish.
Now, there's something that will separate Sicilian cuisine from the other regions I've mentioned. I am not very much aware of a seafood cuisine from the Middle East, although I know it exists. Sicily, however, is known for its seafood dishes. And before you say to me "DUH. It's an island," that is not a guarantee. Sardinia is an island as well, but its seafood cusine is limited, because much of the island is covered with swamps, filled with malarial mosquitoes. So, you will get Sardinian style rabbit (it's GOOD), but you will probably not get Sardinian style swordfish. But you will get Sicilian style swordfish, and that is to where we now turn.

Traditionally, this dish is prepared "rollatino" style. The fish is cut in a very thin slice, filled with the mixture I will discuss below, rolled up, tied or secured with toothpicks or some other element, pan fried, and served, usually with something like salmoriglio sauce. Look it up. It's in this blog.

If you try to get your fish monger to slice swordfish thin enough to do the preparation that way, he will hate you and you will wonder why you did it, because regardless of how thin the slice is, swordfish is fragile, and the slices will break up. You will hate me if I tell you to do it that way. So, here's how Annalena did it. You should do it, too, especially now, when local swordfish is at its peak.

Many people do not like fennel, and if you are one of them, use oregano, fresh if you can, please. The amount of oregano is up to you, as are the other ingredients: pine nuts, raisins or currants (I use the golden raisins. Currants would be more traditional, but the raisins are fine, and I like the golden ones here), pine nuts, and dried bread crumbs. Also, olive oil. And salt.

Chop up the fresh oregano until it's fairly fine, but don't go for green paste. Put a couple of tablespoons of olive oil in a frying pan, and add the raisins and the pine nuts, and the oregano. Stir the stuff over medium heat, and when the pignoli begin to brown, add some bread crumbs and a pinch of salt. Mix it all together. The olive oil will all get absorbed, so add some more. Taste and if you want more salt, go right ahead. Add oil until you have a paste of your desired consistency. Annalena prefers this fairly thick, so she doesn't use much olive oil, but this is one of the hallmarks of Sicilian cooking: you work within a basic framework, and elaborate as you go on.

For the swordfish. I use steaks that are about half an inch thick. Use either a second frying pan OR if you are lucky enough to have a ridged, stovetop grill pan, use that. Brush some olive oil over the pan, and get it REALLY REALLY hot. In fact, I would say you should wait until it smokes. While it's heating up, pat dry your fish, salt it, and then lay it on the surface of your pan. Leave it alone (I'm serious about this), for a solid five minutes. Fish has a different composition than meat and it is much more likely to stick than the others. If you are really squeamish about that possibility, use a nonstick pan, but you won't get the lovely lines.

After five minutes carefully flip the fish, and cook the other side, until it, too gets those wonderful grill marks, or browns.

Now, have your oven preheated to 350, and put the whole pan in for ten minutes. Unlike its cousin, tuna, swordfish does not fare real well if it is undercooked. It CAN be overcooked, but it's hard to do so at ten minutes.

Bring it out of the oven, being careful, and then spread some of that wonderful glop over it.

You basically have "srollatino", or "UNrolled" swordfish. And a fairly simple, somewhat exotic dish at that.

Try it. Expand your horizons. Go south. Eat more fish.