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ItalySwordfish with Lemon and Capers
Lemon and capers are common in Italian swordfish recipes because the strong flavors go well together and stand up to the strong flavor of the fish. Many other recipes include tomatoes, which also go well but which require a little more cooking time. Salsa Verde Modenese This mild green sauce has a base of chopped hard-cooked eggs, parsley, and olive oil, seasoned with garlic, lemon zest, and capers. It is used with the "Modena Meatloaf Polpettone alla Modenese. This should not be confused with the Piquant Green Sauce that goes with the Genoese Cappon Magro.
Polpettone alla ModeneseThis translates to "Meatloaf in the style of Modena", but it's really more like a cross between a traditional American meatloaf and a French ballotine or galantine: It has many ingredients mixed into the meat, and then it's poached in a fish poacher rather than baked. This is traditionally served with boiled vegetables and Salsa Verde Modenese. Swordfish alla Ghiotta
It's a pretty dish, and hearty with cherry tomatoes and green olives, suitable for company but easy enough for a weeknight. Italian Sausages and Turnips
Lorna had secured a big fat Eastham turnip, knowing how well I like those, so even though it's not an Italian variety, it did a great job in this dish. There's a lot of confusion in these parts with regard to the humble turnip. If you care about such details, I refer you to New England Heirloom Turnips & Rutabagas. The executive summary is this: turnips tend to be small and white inside, and the large yellow-fleshed root often referred to in New England is really a rutabaga. In the photo above there's only the Eastham turnip (white inside); the orangey pieces were colored by the sausage fat. Trout Baked in Red Wine Here's a strange and delicious dish from the mountains of Valle d'Aosta. It's odd to see fish and red wine together. It works here, but you want to use a lighter Piedmont red like a Dolcetto or a simple Nebbiolo, or an inexpensive Pinot Noir or Chianti. You make a sauce by preparing a regular soffritto and cooking it in the wine, then you thicken it with a roux, so there's flavor and texture that you want to complement the trout. The fish is baked whole or headless in the skin, so when the diner takes a fish and opens it on the plate, s/he can spoon on as much or as little sauce as desired. Potatoes in White Butter Sauce
There's one tricky part to this recipe: you have to quickly peel and slice the potatoes when they are hot from boiling. To do this, I keep a bowl of cold water in the sink so I can cool off my fingers and the outisde of the potato while I work. Haddock with Capers This simple and flavorful recipe works with any white fish, including halibut and swordfish. It's great for a weeknight because it's easy, and while it's not as quick as some other recipes, you don't have to hang over the pan the whole time. Pasta all'Arrabbiata
You can use dry or fresh chilies. If you use dried chilies, don't chop them and then they are easy to remove so nobody accidentally get more than they expected. This is traditionally served with short pasta like penne or ziti. Shrimp Marsala
The original recipe calls for grilling the shrimp on skewers, but I do this even in inclement weather by pan-frying the shrimp instead. 
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Here's a superfast one-pan recipe for swordfish. 
Here's another classic Sicilian presentation of their beloved swordfish, this one "for the glutton"! 
This is a simple, homey dish, and a good combination for a ribsticking winter lunch.
Here's an easy potato dish when you want something lighter than a scalloped potatoes and more interesting than 
This pasta dish is characterized by the inclusion of a fresh chili pepper in a simple sauce of tomatoes cooked in garlic-scented oil. Arrabbiata is an Italian word for angry; that's the chili pepper. Naturally depending upon your tolerance for angry tomatoes, you can add as much chili pepper as you like. This version is quite mild, with just the taste of the pepper and very little heat. 
This is another of those dishes that you see more often in American restaurants than in Italian ones, but this one is authentically Sicilian, as Marsala wine comes from Marsala town on the western tip of Sicily.
