Making Swordfish Parmesan from Monterey Bay Fish Grotto! 🐟

Well, hello and welcome to At Home today, we’re so glad you dropped in. It’s always good when the family gets together in the kitchen and you know this day is different than normal because I have a special, special guest, who’s gonna be with me today. If you folks, especially you in the Pittsburgh Area are familiar with, and probably most are the Monterey Bay Fish Grotto on Mt. Washington and in Monroeville. Well, Glenn Hawley and his wife, Lisa, they’re both here, but Glenn is gonna be cooking for us. This guy, you have to go there, if you’ve never been there, even if I know we’re on all across the country, but if you’re ever coming into Pittsburgh, say to a taxi driver, “Take me to the Monterey Bay “on Mt. Washington.” You will never forget the experience. We had missionary friends that came in from Idaho, and they were just gonna be here for a little while. And Paul and I said, “Can we take you to dinner?” And they were staying at the Hilton, we said, “We’ll pick you up.” And we took them to and we didn’t even have a reservation, which I don’t subscribe to. You should call and get reservations. We’ll give you that information in a little bit, but they were older and they were so happy to be there and the food was so good. They were like two little kids and we were all just having such a good time sitting there just eating because the whole restaurant has glass walls. You can see, I mean, you’re sitting up on top of Pittsburgh and you see everything. Now that’s nice, the view is great, but let’s talk food here. This food is fabulous. It’s better seafood, the freshest seafood better than what you get at the beach. I mean that’s how fresh it is and what a variety, good service. Can’t say enough about this place, I tell you. And when you come into Pittsburgh or you have a special occasion, you just want something really good to eat think about the Monterey Bay, Monroeville in Pittsburgh. When we come back, we’re gonna meet Glenn and he’s gonna show us something to make with swordfish. Oh, don’t wanna miss it. Stay with us we’ll be right back after the hint. Here’s today’s At Home Hint, swordfish is a mild-flavored, moderately fat fleshed fish, but firm, dense and meat-like, making it one of the most popular fish in the U.S. Because it’s so firm, swordfish can be prepared in almost any manner including sauteing, grilling, broiling, baking and poaching. If you’ve got a helpful hint we’d like to hear from you, send your hint to At Home Hints Cornerstone TeleVision, Wall, Pennsylvania, 15148-1499. Well, I told you my very special guest, Glenn Hawley, so glad that you could come by today.

My pleasure.

Hey, this is great. You have one of the best restaurants around, no kidding. I’m not just giving you a bunch of baloney, you wouldn’t be here if I didn’t really believe you had a great restaurant.

Well, thank you very much.

How long has it been open, the one in Mt. Washington?

Well, Mt. Washington we’re on our eighth year now, still on our eighth year.

And Monroeville?

Monroeville we’re in our 10th year.

Wow, that’s a lot of hard work, Glenn.

Absolutely. We work when you all play.

That’s what it is. Yeah, when we get to play it’s usually his place so he’s doing the work. But I know that you have a passion for food, right?

Correct.

You like to prepare things that people enjoy.

I like fish.

Do you do mostly fish?

Well, my favorite is a veal chop here and there, but it doesn’t quite always work at the restaurant.

But your menu is very good. It’s not just the fish, you don’t just have fish ’cause I know you have fillet and other things there.

Right, filet mignon, strip steaks. We do chicken, shrimp, all those.

And it’s all good. My most favorite thing is a crab cake. I don’t know how you hold that much crab together without all the breading. ‘Cause mostly when you get a crab cake, there’s a lot of breading.

Correct.

But yours isn’t?

It’s a secret. Secret ingredient.

You can’t tell us I understand that.

No, I can, it’s called crab.

Oh, yeah put more crab in?

Right.

More crab, less bread. That’s great. Well you can’t, I get that every time I go, whether I wanna try something else or not. Today, you’re gonna make us something that you serve at the restaurant?

Yes.

And it’s primarily what?

Swordfish.

Okay, tell me about swordfish here.

Well, it’s our swordfish Parmesan is the preparation that we’re doing today.

Okay.

Now, the swordfish that we spec, is we spec it off the west coast. A couple reasons, one, west coast waters are colder so the fish works a little harder to stay warm and it just makes it a little firmer. And then we spec 125 pound fish and up because there’s been a concern over the years from east coast swordfish that they’re buying up to 100 pound and we’re eating too much swordfish.

Too much, yeah so they don’t get to get to be a big size?

Right.

And you don’t get as much of a bounty for our supply. Now tell me, this is beautiful. This is so pink.

Today, what I think if you going to your fishmonger, your grocery store, whomever you buy your fish from, for this particular recipe I like the fish portion to be approximately a half inch to an inch.

So you’re talking about–

For sizing, in width.

Thick, oh, width, okay.

So now I’ve done is if it comes like this out of your–

It’s pretty big, huh?

Out of the–

Package.

Out of the package or how they present it to you then I’m simply just saying, take it and cut it down the middle.

Okay, now why would that be too thick? Is it too thick because it’s the flavor or too thick–

No, for this particular recipe, cooking time.

Oh, okay.

Simply cooking time. We cook all of our fish to medium, but obviously if you like it a little bit more done, you can cook it a little longer, but to cook in a saute pan a piece that was this thick to start with is gonna be very difficult. It’s gonna take you a long time.

It takes too long and that ties up the kitchen, doesn’t it?

Absolutely.

Okay, so now tell me about these little red spots, is that okay?

Sure.

Those dark spots, what is that’s?

It’s where the bloodline of the swordfish–

Let me just show that here.

Actually came, it’s the bloodline of the swordfish that would’ve gone more like this. So that’s the perfect center cut, if you see the rings, it’s almost like rings on a tree. So then the bloodline runs up here. The bloodline’s edible, not a problem at all. It’s just gonna be a little bit stronger flavorly. So then we–

All right what are we doing with it? We’re gonna get moving here.

Here we’re basically doing what we call a breading station. So it’s common breading station you got a flour, egg wash and Parmesan

Just playing with flour? All-purpose flour.

Correct and then Parmesan cheese. Now, the Parmesan cheese in this particular recipe, the unique thing is you want a dry Parmesan cheese. You really don’t want good top quality Parmesan Reggiano. It’s actually wetter.

Really?

Even though the flavor profiles much better for Parmesan cheese, it’s actually going to be–

What would I ask for then?

You can get just a regular domestic Parmesan, that’s really already ground.

Okay, but you don’t wanna buy this stuff in a green box, right?

No, I would tend to maybe not go quite that dry.

Well, that always tastes like sawdust to me. It just, doesn’t have a flavor like of course I would buy the Reggiano all the time and that’s got all the flavor.

To be perfectly honest, that’s a term that gets used a lot in Parmesan

Oh, really?

Is sawdust. If you want to check the qualities of your Parmesan cheese, you actually drop iodine in it.

Really?

And that gives you varying degrees of the quality of your of your Parmesan. But for this dish, it’s actually better to use a little bit lesser quality.

Okay.

So what you’ve done is you made your standard breading station.

Get this out of your way here. I tell you, I cannot wait–

Personally, I’ll do medium to medium high heat, because you want to make it golden brown at the same time, cooking it through. You’re gonna cook it on both sides

‘Cause this doesn’t go in the oven, does it?

It could go in the oven, you could finish it with maybe on 350, but–

Not for very long.

Yeah, then that you tend to have to watch it a little bit closer. I like, if I start it in a pan, I like to finish it in a pan. If I start it in the oven, I finish it in the oven. So all you’re doing is you’re gonna flour, egg wash–

Now all with hands, no forks and the utensils on that stuff yeah, you don’t need it as such.

And just coat with cottage cheese.

Not even any spices or anything in the cheese either, huh?

No the cheese itself will always have a saltier flavor, in the sauce is where we’ll pick up the pepper.

Oh, okay. Okay, good.

So for this, we usually do per person two pieces about three to four ounces each tops.

Wow, swordfish, huh?

So you’re about maybe six to eight ounces of fish depending upon what else you want to serve with it you know, as far as a side dish or whatever. At the restaurant in the wine room at Mt. Washington we actually do this over a bed of sauteed spinach. It’s also that presentation today, but you could do any side dish that you like.

We have two minutes here till we have to take a break.

Is that right?

Yeah, it’s how time fast–

At home, I would suggest a flat pan. You could do it in a saute pan if you have the flat pan concept it’ll work.

The griddle’s good, the pancake griddle, right?

The griddle, correct.

Yeah, forget about the grilled cheese let’s make some good fish here.

Now we will, you can do either a just a blended oil or you can use at the restaurant, we use a lot of clarified butter.

Oh, yeah ’cause it doesn’t burn.

Correct.

Get the way out of that then you’re you know.

Correct.

Oh, boy. Now you don’t want this up real high, you want this on medium so–

I would do medium. Let me sneak this thing here.

Sure.

I would do medium ’cause you see how this one’s already starting–

Yeah, it’s already getting brown.

Starting to go golden. So we’ll just bring that down a little bit.

Yeah, oh, no it’s clicking.

Maybe not quite that far down.

It’s hard to get used to somebody else’s stove, is it? Look how brown, yeah.

And here is, that’s the golden–

Look how golden that is? It’s beautiful.

That’s the golden we’re looking for. And the other reason that I like to then continue when I cook on whatever the equipment is that you’re gonna start with then we can raise and lower this heat like we just did to allow to start there to cook the fish through.

Well, you know what? While he’s flipping the fish and getting nice and gold, we’re gonna take a break. We come back, he’s gonna show us how to make a fantastic sauce and steam some spinach, you don’t wanna miss it. Stay with us, we’ll be back in two minutes. Well, if you’re just joining us, you’ve missed my very special guest Glenn Hawley, who’s here from the Monterey Bay Fish Grotto. You folks in Pittsburgh and Monroeville you’ll know what I’m talking about and he’s making his swordfish Parmesan. No fish smell here because that’s not a good thing, right?

No, fish smell in my business is a bad thing.

Bad thing. Well, there’s none here so this is a good thing. Okay, let’s make the sauce, okay?

Okay, the sauce is a white wine, au Sauternes with a cream sauce and it compliments then the Parmesan cheese. So we do medium high heat.

Is that how you test in a pan where you put your hand there you can tell if it’s medium hot?

Yep, you’re allowed to– That one’s a little warmer.

Yeah, that’s the third burner right there.

All right.

It’s hard, imagine walking into another kitchen trying to control all the stuff on the stove that’s hard to do.

But you’re doing a great job here, okay.

Set him up there. Get that one going.

Sauternes?

Sauternes, two ounces of Sauternes. Could be a little warm on this one too.

Well, we better cool that stuff, huh?

See?

That’s all right. The first one, one of these first ones.

The first one, oh.

Is this one okay here? Is that a little high?

No, that one will come back down now.

Down a little bit. Okay, that’s good. Hey, that’s good. We’d rather learn it and do it right.

All right. Still too-

Yeah, still a little warm, here watch how we do this.

Okay, oh yeah that’s how you chill that.

Sure.

Good, okay we get all of these secrets here, now what are we doing?

So we’re gonna do there it is. Oh, yeah. Now if you just continue that would get too burnt, huh?

Correct.

Don’t want that to happen. Who wants a burnt sauce? Not us, okay.

So we do a little white wine or Sauternes is what we call it. We use a chicken base.

Was that curry in a jar like it’s just dry granules-like or something?

Well, not the real dry maybe in the, I can’t think of it off the top my head.

Like a bouillon thing?

Not the bouillon cube, correct.

Okay, so this is actual base that you could–

Correct, this is an actual base, it’ll have a lot more chicken flavor to it.

Now, I’m amazed ’cause it looks like there’s hardly anything in that pan, but that’s the basis for your whole sauce, right?

Correct, this starts with this, we’re gonna reduce this by half.

Okay, and in the meantime now, what would you serve with something like this? I mean, I know you have a variety of sides, which is great when you go to the restaurant. That’s terrific, but what have you thought about for us today?

At the restaurant we give a choice of sides. Oh, this is gonna be two ounces of heavy cream,

Two ounces of heavy cream, what’s not to like about this one, yes

And then we add just a spinch of shallot.

I like that word, spinch, you said that to me before I thought this–

Spinch is a great word.

Yeah, it could be anything you want it to be, huh?

Correct, now this sauce is gonna happen pretty quickly. So this is we call it, a la minute sauce, which means to the minute.

Oh, because you could make it like in a minute?

Correct, so that’s gonna come together pretty quickly you can set your swordfish off to the side. In the wine room, I was saying that we do a sauteed spinach and also today we’re gonna offer the asparagus. Let’s drop the asparagus and starts to steam that as a side dish.

Now you don’t peel them or anything, right?

But you can.

Yeah, but you don’t have to. I love spinach. You know it used to be just like a spring thing, but now you get it all year long, right?

Right.

I mean, it’s not like just an occasional thing and this is wonderful, clean, beautifully, nice and dry spinach.

Absolutely.

You’ll wanna warm that, right?

No, it’ll snap, crackle, pop.

We don’t need that, that’s our cereal, that’s not our spinach, right?

Both of them.

Okay, you know that stuff cooks down so much, it’s hard to know how much to make for a serving.

I would do about three times to four times the amount that you think you’re gonna end up with. Now, we’d actually do just a spinch. You could do salt.

Really?

You can do chicken base ’cause the chicken base will give you the same texture and flavor as the salt. So this is gonna start to sizzle down and then we’ll do just–

Put some shallot there too. Look at this sauce how wonderful that’s looking now. Oh, now we’re okay with these puppies, right?

Right, they’re just going to golden.

They’re going to golden, okay.

And again, we cook it to medium to not overdo the fish.

Right, but was not to like with Parmesan cheese on a piece of fish with a wonderful sauce.

Now, you see as this is reducing, we’re looking for a sauce consistency.

Like thicker, a little bit thicker?

Correct, a little thicker. Go just little higher in there.

Okay, you said that the name of that sauce was what? It’s to the minute.

A la minute.

A la minute, okay. So that basically within two or three minutes, it should be there, right?

Right.

If you have the temperature up to the right temperature it should be done pretty quick.

Correct.

Look how fast that went done, geez.

Yep, this goes very quickly. Can I set this on your countertop there?

Absolutely, so you just, you know what I’m always fascinated within restaurants is how you get everything done at once. I mean, you have the vegetable, you have the sauce, you have the fish, you have the other, they have this. How do you do it all?

It is the oh, here we go. Now this sauce is gonna finish, see how it’s starting to tighten up here.

Oh yeah, thickening up.

This is gonna finish with squeeze of lemon.

Oh man, I just got a whiff of something smells so good. Where’s my fork?

And a little fresh cracked pepper.

How often do you have to load that puppy? Not too often, huh?

Depends upon which food server’s using it.

I got you. If it’s at our table it’s probably every other week because our love is a lot. Oh, I see it, okay.

See? Now that’s going to be–

Now, tilt it so you can that. Tilt to the side.

Now, that’s gonna be the–

Look how thick that is?

That’s the thickness of the sauce.

It’s wonderful.

So that’s right where we want to be.

Okay, wow everything is like coming together, huh? Now and how long are we gonna steam these?

Well, we’d like to steam them a little longer for about six minutes maybe.

Six minutes, okay.

There we go, there we go. This one can come off, okay.

Okay, wow and there’s a sauce, look at that.

As that reduces down, this is also used at the restaurant, this is a money tool.

What do you mean?

When we plate this, this will go on the plate and then you use a spatula to scrape instead of making twice as much sauce.

I got you.

That’s how to be profitable in a restaurant business.

That’s right, absolutely because I said to you, I would be making like a gallon of sauce for these two pieces of fish because when I looked at that I thought there’s not very much in that pan to make a sauce with.

Correct and this particular recipe that I’m showing is only designed for one person. So you can make this a little bit more. It’s just sometimes you get into a little trouble on the reduction side.

Yeah, right.

Okay.

Okay, while you’re doing that let me go through where the locations and the phone numbers of the restaurant, because I know you’re gonna wanna make some reservations. Now you do have people that just walk in without reservations, but it’s better with reservations.

Reservations are always better.

Okay, all right, I think it’s on the lower part of your screen there. Tell me the phone number. Are we up in Monroeville? I think we’re oh, Mt. Washington. What’s the number at Mt. Washington?

412

412

481

481

4414

4414 Okay, that’s great. Now let’s do Monroeville. That’s 412

374-8530.

Easy, simple and in the newsletter, we’re gonna have these recipes but we’re also going to give you that information in the newsletter. And seriously, if you’re from out of town, if you want a real treat and a Pittsburgh memory, you wanna go to the Monterey Bay. We’re gonna take a break, we come back we’re gonna be in the dining room with Lisa, Glenn’s wife. And we’re gonna be plating this up. You don’t wanna miss it. We’ll be back in just a minute. Well, here we are in the kitchen with my very special guest, Glenn Hawley from the Monterey Bay. And Lisa I’m so glad you could be with us too.

Thank you for inviting me.

Oh, you’re more than welcome and thank you. Look at this delicious plate. Oh my, the sauce, the swordfish and the spinach. You put that on a bed of spinach and then you have the Brussels. I’m not– Brussels. You have the asparagus, I like them too. The asparagus down there with just a little bit of lemon, and beside it, I asked him to bring a dessert from Monterey. This is one of my favorite, tell them what this is.

This is a Baileys Irish cheesecake. Now, Jim Lazarason, my pastry chef is just–

[Lisa] He’s awesome.

He is unbelievable.

He is desserts.

Yeah, he is. He really is.

We were there for a Valentine’s or something, and you had that whole platter. They had the chocolate, the key lime pie, the little tart thing, and then the cheesecake with something else. It was incredible. I’m telling you, you have to go and taste the delicious food. This is incredible. You saw how easy it was to do, and what I like about you, you guys are family, you have children, you make it… And you make it a real experience anytime someone comes to your restaurant and you know when you go to a nice place you want to have a good memory. Trust me at the Monterey Bay you’ll have a good memory. Doesn’t have to be a special occasion, right Lisa?

We’ll make it special.

That’s right and any occasion is special occasion when you go to the Monterey Bay, so please make your reservations. Thank you so much, it was so great having you here.

Absolutely my pleasure.

Maybe someday we’ll bring the cameras to your restaurant. How would that be?

Sure.

That might be fun. That would be fun.

Call me.

We might do this.

The staff would love that.

Yeah, well, you know, it’s fascinating to me to see how people do in the kitchen at a restaurant.

Maybe Saturday night at about 7:45.

Oh, I don’t think I can do that. That would not be a good time. No, we’re gonna take them when there’s nobody there before they open at five o’clock. But again, I thank you and I thank you so much for being here. It’s always a joy when the family gets together and I wish you could be here to taste it, but since you’re not, I’m gonna take a taste for you. So be sure to join us the next time, because it wouldn’t be the same without you on At Home. We’ll see you then, thanks again.

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