I always say that I need to eat fish more often (see here, for example), but for some reasons I never manage to do it enough. I’m still working on that. When I do pull it off, grilled blue marlin steak is one of my go to recipes. Blue marlin is perfect for grilling because it is so solid. It has a firm almost meat like texture to it. Because of that texture and its light flavour I find that it’s a worthy substitute for tuna (but about half the price). As for the recipe, you can’t get any simpler than this. It can be summed up in 4 words: salt, pepper, grill, lemon. So, without further ado…
Ingredients
- salt (I’ll use this opportunity to plug Himalayan pink salt, which I discovered thanks to my girlfriend. Tastes great and it’s supposed to have a bunch of health benefits.)
- fresh ground black pepper
- olive oil
- lemon
The Method
- Heat your barbecue on high.
- Rub a bit of olive oil on both sides of the blue marlin and season both sides liberally with salt and fresh cracked black pepper.
- Cook the fish for 3 minutes on each side over high heat with the lid open.
Tip: Don’t move the steak or try to flip it too early. After 3 minutes it will release from the grill without any sticking. Depending on the thickness you may need only 2 minutes for the second side. The aim is to have the center remain slightly translucent. Do not overcook! - Squeeze some fresh lemon over the blue marlin steak before eating.
Suggested wine pairing: Louis Latour Chardonnay (Bourgogne). This crisp refreshing chardonnay from Burgundy paired nicely with the delicate flavour of the blue marlin and worked nicely with the lemon I had added to the fish and fiddleheads. And at under $20 it’s perfect for a weekday meal.
The Result
Served with fiddleheads and grilled nantes carrots and washed down with crisp chardonnay, this was a perfect light summer dinner. The blue marlin was fresh, and good fresh fish doesn’t need much to taste delicious; so the salt, pepper, lemon combo did the trick. Another benefit of eating fish – this was a good sized blue marlin steak and after finishing it I was definitely full, but I didn’t feel full. As a result, I didn’t feel at all bad about polishing off the bottle of wine. I really do need to eat fish more often…
More pics:
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- Summertime Fresh!
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- Dinner on the balcony.
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- Grilled Blue Marlin Steak with Fiddleheads and Grilled Nantes Carrots
Nice recipe. I’ll give it a shot this summer.
Question: where do you get your blue marlin in town?
Thanks. I get all of my seafood from the fish place in Atwater market. Can’t go wrong with that place. The blue marlin in particular is always as fresh and as clean as can be, so just make sure you don’t overcook it and you’ll be good to go.
If you don’t mind me asking, how much do they sell it for?
I don’t remember the exact price per pound, but that very big steak was about $11.
At Jean Talon market Shamrock Seafood store sells it for 29.95 a Kilo,I paid 20 bucks for two big steaks today
Thanks!
Just grilled a couple blue marlin steaks after looking @ your recipe. Was planning on following it but being in an RV we were limited with the items. I substituted orange pineapple juice for the lemon, chicken rub for the pepper, did have the olive oil, the cooking time and releasing from grill was right on. Planning on heading back to the market for some more. In NH this is not a normal find in the market
Tom,
Nice! Glad it worked out. Grilled blue marlin steaks out of an RV, sounds like good times.
Eating marlin???? Yikes, the Billfish Foundation is not going to be happy with you! Blue Marlin should be released not eaten. They will soon be extinct if this practice continues as the stocks are depleting rapidly.
And have the Billfish Foundation confirmed how many tagged and released Marlin have been found dead on the sea floor, because they couldn’t recover from being hauled in and tagged??? Muppet