A good fish taco is hard to come by, so i felt a tad nervous taking on this new culinary venture. Mixed with nervousness was also excitement because if it came out delicious I would no longer have to seek these out at restaurants because one could always be created at home.
VBar and I had some spare time during the work day to scour the internet for a tasty fish marinade and a worthy red cabbage slaw recipe. We decided on a marinade from epicurious and a slaw recipe from Bobby Flay, both seemed easy to tackle on a work night and didn’t prove to be expensive if we split the ingredients we needed to purchase in half.
Red Cabbage Slaw
My friend Sarah was down visiting from Portland and helped me prepare the slaw since it is far more tasty if it has time to sit and marinade in its own flavor. I knew the slaw and marinade would be heavy on the cilantro but was intrigued to see that this recipe called for fresh basil as well. This recipe was surely a winner and I was delighted to see that I had leftovers to bring to work the following day.
Fish Marinade
We made a variation of a recipe we found on epicurious.com. The amount of ingredients is totally dependent on how much fish you are using but here are the key flavor components:
olive oil, lime juice, pressed garlic, chopped cilantro, sliced jalapeno, oregano, cumin, salt and pepper. Whisk mixture together and add additional red wine vinegar to add more volume to the marinade. Pour over fish and let sit for about 20 minutes.
Grilled Fish
The biggest fear when grilling fish is having it stick to the grates. Here are some techniques I used to ensure this wouldn’t happen to the cod we were using.
1.) Make sure the grill grates are heated completely through before adding the fish.
2.) Prior to fish grilling, make sure the grates are scraped clean and lubricate them with oil. This can be done by cutting a small onion in half, dip in it oil and run it along the grill grates. The onion is more durable to the heat than a folded up paper towel and adds another layer of flavor.
We flipped the fish once then poured the rest of the marinade over it to keep it moist. Once the fish started to show slight signs of flaking apart we removed it from the grill and let sit on a plate to finish the internal cooking.
VBar's plate
Assembly
Heat tortillas either on the grill, or if you are feeding a larger crowd wrap them in foil and heat them in the oven. On the heated tortilla add a layer of sour cream, grilled fish, red cabbage slaw, sliced avocado and some dashes of hot sauce. If you know all of your guests enjoy heat you can always mix the hot sauce directly into your sour cream to form a light pinkish mixture.
The fish tacos were served along side sweet potato fries, which were tossed with olive oil, salt, pepper, cumin and red pepper flakes and baked in a 425 degree oven until brown and crispy. This meal proved to be light and satisfying- truly perfect for future summer dinner parties.
