Recipe #13: Fish Tacos

I miss street tacos. I miss street tacos a lot.

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I just want an entire truck of street tacos.

Ingredients:

Fried Fish:

• about 1 lb of frozen fish, thawed and cut into taco-friendly pieces (I used TJ’s frozen mahi-mahi)
• Flour + spice mix
  • 1/2 cup flour
  • 1 tbsp cumin
  • 1 tbsp chili powder
  • 2 tsp cayenne
  • 2 tsp garlic powder
  • 2 tsp pepper
  • 1 tbsp salt
• 1 cup buttermilk or “buttermilk”
  • my “buttermilk” was 1/2 cup yogurt and 1/2 cup whole milk
• 1 cup cornmeal
• 1/2 cup high smoke-point oil (I used grapeseed oil)

Red cabbage slaw:

• 1 red cabbage
• 2/3 cup flavorful vinegar (I used a 1:1 ratio of apple cider vinegar and red wine vinegar)
• 2 tbsp salt
• 2 tbsp pepper

Taco fixings:

• sour cream
• yogurt
• cilantro
• lime juice
• corn tortillas

These brought happiness. You can use this method to fry anything at all.

For the slaw:

1. Cut cabbage into strips and place in a dish with some depth and surface area (a baking dish is great and so is a wide bowl.)
2. Pour in vinegar and sprinkle salt and pepper.
3. Toss and squeeze the cabbage by hand to combine the ingredients.
4. Let sit at least an hour, tossing every 20 minutes to make sure all of the cabbage is exposed to the vinegar.

For the fish:

1. Completely thaw your frozen fish (or use fresh fish.)
2. Find three small bowls. In the first bowl, mix together your flour and spices. Put the buttermilk in the second bowl and the cornmeal in the third bowl.
3. Pat down your fish with a paper towel to remove excess moisture, and cut the fish into taco-friendly pieces.
4. One hand will handle the dry bowls, and the other hand will handle the wet bowl. This is to make sure that the batter sticks to the fish and not your hands.
5. With the dry hand, coat a piece of fish in the flour+spice mixture.
6. With the dry hand, drop the fish into the buttermilk without getting that hand wet. With the wet hand, coat the fish with the buttermilk.
7. With the wet hand, drop the fish into the cornmeal. With the dry hand, coat the fish in cornmeal. Place the fish onto a plate or separate bowl.
8. When all of the fish is battered, heat the low smoke point oil on high heat. The fish should sizzle when you place it into the pan. Fry until golden brown on all sides.
9. Place on a paper towel on a plate to cool and let excess oil drip off.
10. Assemble tacos.

Tacos are happiness.