Agghiotta is a Sicilian manner of cooking fish, particularly swordfish. It leans heavily into the Mediterranean style using tomatoes, olives, and capers. I found a recipe for it on Serious Eats and what it boils down to is make the sauce, cook the fish, and then put the fish in the sauce. Since we only rarely have swordfish I made the recipe using tilapia. I constructed our plates by putting down some rice, followed by the sauce, and then the fish garnished with pine nuts. I also added some kale, garlic, fennel, and red bell pepper to my sauce since I had leftovers of them in the refrigerator. Here is the basic recipe for the sauce.

Tomato olive sauce for fish

• 1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil
• 1 medium (8-ounce; 225 g) red onion, diced
• 1 1/2 pounds (680 g) small tomatoes, quartered, or one 28-ounce can whole peeled tomatoes with juices, tomatoes roughly chopped 
• 2 tablespoons (3/4 ounce, 21 g) salted capers, rinsed of excess salt 
• 1/2 cup (2 ounces; 57 g) pitted mild green olives, such as Castelvetrano, halved lengthwise
• 2 tablespoons (1 ounce; 28 g) pine nuts, toasted 
• 2 tablespoons (1/4 ounce; 8 g) minced flat-leaf parsley leaves and tender stems
• Red wine vinegar and/or granulated sugar, to taste (optional)

Add 1 tablespoon of oil to the skillet along with the onion. Cook, stirring and scraping the bottom of the pan, until onion has softened but not browned, about 4 minutes. Add tomatoes, capers, and olives and cook, stirring, until tomatoes have broken down and their liquid has thickened, about 5 minutes. Season with salt. If desired, add 1 or 2 teaspoons red wine vinegar and a pinch or two of sugar to balance the sauce’s flavor; whether or not you decide to do this will depend on the flavor of the tomatoes you’re using, and how far into agrodolce (“sweet-sour”) territory you want to push the sauce.

Reduce heat to medium. Stir in pine nuts and parsley, then return fish to the pan, nestling it into the sauce and cook until warmed through. Serve hot, warm, room temperature, or chilled.