If fish tacos are on the menu of any restaurant, it's hard for me to not order them, even if something else on the menu looks fantastic. I just have to check out all possible versions.
Similarly, if I see a recipe for fish tacos, I have to try it. Much like blueberry muffin recipes, as you might have noticed. It's the food equivalent of having to watch/read/attend any movie, book or play adaptation that purports to be Jane Austen-adjacent. But at least unlike the endless string of disappointments in the Austen-wannabe department, with fish tacos you get food out of the attempt.
Sizzling turmeric-dill fish tacos
From Bon Appetit, August 2022. This one gets a nuoc cham salsa on top of turmeric-dill marinated fish.
Ingredients
2 tablespoons lime juice
1 tablespoon plus 1 teaspoon fish sauce
2 teaspoons sugar
2 medium tomatoes, chopped
1 small red onion, finely chopped
1 Fresno or serrano chile, seeds removed and finely chopped
3 garlic cloves, finely chopped, divided
¼ cup chopped cilantro, plus more leaves for serving
1 teaspoon kosher salt
1 2-inch piece of ginger, peeled and finely grated
1 teaspoon ground turmeric
5 tablespoons vegetable oil, divided
1½ pounds firm fish, like cod or halibut
1 bunch scallions, dark green parts only, cut into 2-inch pieces
½ bunch of dill, coarse stems removed
10-12 tortillas, warmed
Topping options:
Thinly sliced red cabbage
Sliced chiles
Cilantro leaves
Chopped salted roasted peanuts
Lime wedges for serving
Method
Combine, lime juice, fish sauce and sugar in a medium bowl. Whisk until sugar
is dissolved. Add tomatoes, red onion, diced chile, 2 chopped garlic cloves and
¼ chopped cilantro. Season to taste with salt and pepper. Cover and chill if
making ahead a few hours.
For marinade, combine remaining chopped garlic clove, ginger, turmeric, kosher salt and 3 tablespoons of oil in a medium bowl. Cut fish into 2-inch pieces and toss to coat with turmeric mixture. Let sit 5-10 minutes. (Or you can cover and chill the fish for up to 2 hours ahead.)
Heat 2 tablespoons oil in large skillet. Cook fish about 4 minutes a side over medium high heat until golden brown and just cooked through. Toss in scallions and dill and cook until scallions are just wilted. Remove from heat.
Serve fish inside tacos topped with the salsa mixture, cabbage, cilantro leaves and other toppings as desired.
Rating: Definitely worth trying. Decent flavor. Fairly mild heat. You don't taste the dill at all amid everything else going on, but maybe you would miss its absence. We were happy to eat them, but I'm not sure they pass the effort-to-reward ratio test.
Fish tacos with mango avocado salsa
Adapted from “Fit Food: Eating Well for Life” by Ellen Haas
Ingredients
1 ripe avocado
¼ cup fresh lime juice
1 cup diced mango
¼ cup chopped red pepper
¼ cup chopped scallions
¼ teaspoon ground cumin
2 firm fish fillets, 8 ounces each
2 teaspoons canola oil
4 flour tortillas or up to 8 corn tortillas
1 cup shredded cabbage
2 plum tomatoes, diced
Lime wedges for serving
Method
Peel, pit and chop avocado. Combine with lime juice, mango, red pepper and
scallions.
Brush fish with oil and season with salt and pepper. Grill about 5 minutes a side on a medium-high grill setting or pan fry in a bit more canola oil. Flake into pieces a couple of inches thick.
Heat tortillas in foil either on the grill or in a 300-degree oven for 5 to 8 minutes.
To serve, divide fish among tortillas (you may find you need to use two corn tortillas per taco if using or it won’t have enough structural integrity). Top with cabbage, tomatoes and salsa. Serve with lime wedges on the side. Makes 4 tacos.
Rating: Fine. Fairly fast to assemble. I actually preferred this mango salsa, however.
If I run across a recipe that purports to be wickedly good and it involves fish tacos, well, clearly I have to give it a try. I paired this with some fish fillets dipped in cornstarch, then beaten eggs and then a mixture of cornmeal, salt and chili powder. I baked them for 10 minutes or so until done in a 400-degree oven, and paired it with some usual suspect toppings.
Wickedly good fish taco sauce
From SoupAddict.com
Ingredients
½ cup sour cream or Greek yogurt
½ cup mayonnaise
Juice of 1 to 2 limes
½ teaspoon cumin
½ teaspoon ground coriander
½ teaspoon dill weed
½ teaspoon dried oregano
¼ teaspoon ground chipotle chili powder
½ teaspoon capers, minced
1 hot pepper, seeded and minced
1 tablespoon chopped fresh cilantro leaves
Method
Whisk sour cream, mayonnaise and enough lime juice to make a pourable consistency. (I found I needed the juice of two large limes and it really still wasn't pourable, but maybe that makes for less messy tacos anyway.) Mix in spices, capers, pepper and cilantro and whisk thoroughly. Chill until ready to use, preferably at least an hour since the flavors deepen with more time.
Rating: Is it wickedly good? I wouldn't go that far. It's a tasty enough white sauce for Baja style fish tacos, certainly, but it would be better paired with pico de gallo as well rather than trying to have it stand on its own. As a potential white sauce for fish tacos, I give the edge to the cilantro aioli I tried as part of the elote pizza experiment.
It did work reasonably well as the special sauce on some Impossible Burgers. Better than the burgers, certainly, which were disappointing in flavor, texture and the fact that they made Dave sick. But they do look like burgers.
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| Don't know that I'll try to replicate the sashimi tuna tacos from New Scenic, but they were a change of pace at the fair this year. And of course we had to try them. |
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