Baja Style Fish Tacos

Ah, Baja street food...the memories of driving down with friends to Rosarito for spring break. Piling more people into a hotel room than is legally allowable and then waking up with at least one more person that didn’t drive down with us. We usually got our hand stamped in the afternoon at the big club (Papas and Beer or Senor Frogs?) so we could wait in the shorter line in the evening, but we usually started our night at Rock and Role Lobster. And while there were usually only weekend romances with people from UCLA we ran into down there (why we drove for hours to just hang out with more UCLA people is beyond me), this is the infamous location where my college roommate Sylvia met her wonderful husband Paul. (BTW, not me Mom, remember I had a college boyfriend, or as Alvie always wondered, why bring sand to the beach?) Sylvia saw Paul sitting on a speaker and thought he was cute. Then while a group of us danced he passed by on the dance floor. Not knowing what do to (“oh my god here he comes, should I talk to him…what do I do), Chris decided to shove Sylvia into him. As Paul helped her get back on her feet he asked if she wanted to dance…and the rest is history. And yes there is a picture to commemorate the day. I took it, and while for some reason the camera took a crooked picture with the top of their heads cut off, they still have it framed with pride. They are one of my favorite couples…Rosarito…it can happen.

So after a night of dancing and $2.00 Coronas with lime, fish tacos are the perfect thing to eat. These were a lot of fun to make at home, they tasted great and were a lot lighter than the ones
you get in Baja.


I pretty much followed the recipe exactly, I don’t think I’ve ever deep fried anything before. I used Corona for the beer batter, because it’s light tasting. I don’t like beer (except in Rosarito, uh?), so this worked best for me. Also I used cabbage instead of lettuce, since that is how they are served in Baja. And next time I would love to make the sauce with Mexican Crema or Crème Fraiche instead of Mayonnaise to get closer to the original.


We served these with refried beans. Peter and I will definitely be making these again.




Recipe: Fish Tacos (Cooks Illustrated, “The Quick Recipe”)
Serves 4-6

Ingredients:
1 cup mayonnaise
1 ½ tsp juice from 1 lime, plus one lime cut into wedges
1 chipotle chile packed in adobo sauce, minced to a paste
Salt
4 cups vegetable oil
1 cup unbleached all-purpose flour
½ tsp ground cumin
¼ tsp cayenne pepper
1 cup beer
1 ½ lbs sturdy white fish fillets (cod, halibut, or haddock), cut into 4 by 1-inch pieces
12 small corn tortillas
½ head iceberg lettuce, cored and shredded fine (I used cabbage)
Hot pepper sauce, such as Tabasco (I used Tapatio)

Adjust an oven rack to the middle position and heat the oven to 200 degrees. Mix the mayonnaise, lime juice, chile and salt to taste in a small bowl; set aside.

Meanwhile, heat the oil in a large dutch oven or heavy-bottomed saucepan over medium heat until the oil registers 350 degrees on a thermometer. Whisk together the flour, cumin, cayenne, and 1 teaspoon salt in a large bowl. Whisk in the beer until the batter is completely smooth. Add half of the fish to the batter and stir to coat. Cover a wire cooling rack with several layers of paper towels and set if over a rimmed baking sheet.

Using tongs, transfer the fish to the oil and fry until golden brown (making sure the pieces don’t touch, 4 to 5 minutes). Transfer the fish to the paper towel-lined rack and set the baking sheet in the oven to keep the fish warm. Repeat the process with the remaining fish. While the fish cooks, toast the tortilla, 1 at a time, in a skillet over medium-high heat until softened and speckled with brown, 20 to 30 seconds per side. Wrap the tortillas in a slightly moistened kitchen towel to keep warm.
For assembly, smear each tortilla with mayonnaise and top with shredded lettuce. Add 1 piece of fish to each tortilla and serve immediately, folded in half, passing hot pepper sauce and lime wedges at the table.

Arroz a la Mexicana/Mexican Rice (Due to some technical difficulties I wasn’t able to take pictures. But that didn’t stop us from eating!)

Even though I’ve made Mexican rice more times than I can count, I’ve never made it from scratch (i.e., pureeing tomatoes rather than just opening a can of tomato sauce). For this recipe I used my new Diana Kennedy book, “From My Mexican Kitchen: Techniques and Ingredients”. Diana Kennedy and Rick Bayless are probably the most famous Mexican cooks from the U.S., which means they write in English, something my 3rd+ Generation monolingual status needs right now (Bilingual in 2007, baby!!). I like Diana Kennedy because she was the first to document Mexican cooking in English. She lives and runs an institute there, and has been given the highest honor by the Mexican Government. She’s also very anal, and fussy about doing things “right” and in the most traditional of ways. One of my very best friends, Veronica, got me her last book, “Mi Mexico”, but that is more like graduate school of Mexican cooking and I’ve been a little afraid of cooking from it. So I got her most basic book

My grandmother taught me how to make rice and beans when I was in college. I think she was influenced by the “innovations” that came about in the 1950’s that helped home cooks stream line their recipes. She used Campbell’s chicken and rice soup, I use organic chicken broth. She used powdered onion and garlic, I use the fresh. But I’ve never pureed my own tomatoes. I also added the carrots, which I don’t usually do, though it does make the rice look prettier. I didn’t have the other optional ingredients on hand. And the results…pretty good, much more delicate in taste than with canned. But I kind of like the tanginess you get from canned tomato sauce. Final verdict, unless I have an abundance of tomatoes I don’t think I’ll make a habit of pureeing them.

Recipe: Arroz a la Mexicana (Diana Kennedy, “From My Mexican Kitchen”)
Makes about 6 servings

1 ½ cups long grain white rice
¼ to 1/3 cup vegetable oil
8 ounces tomatoes, roughly chopped, about 1 ½ cups
1 tbsp roughly chopped white onion
1 garlic clove, roughly chopped
About 3 ½ cups chicken broth
1 small carrot, trimmed, scraped and thinly sliced, (optional)
2 tbsp peas (optional)
1 large sprig parsley (optional)
2 serrano chiles, left whole (optional)
Salt to taste

For this quantity you will need a flameproof pan about 4 inces deep and 9 inches across. Pour hot water to cover over the rice and let soak for about 5 minutes. Strain, rinse in cold water and strain again. Be sure to shake the strainer well to remove any excess water. So do not do this step ahead of time or the rice will become too damp.

Heat the oil in the pan and stir in the rice – it should sizzle as it touches the oil. Stir until the grains are evenly coated and continue frying over medium heat until they sound brittle and are just starting to turn golden, about 10 minutes. Tip the pan to one side and drain off the excess oil.

Meanwhile, put the tomatoes, onion, and garlic into a blender jar and blend until smooth. Stir the puree into the rice and continue frying over fairly high heat, scraping the bottom of the pan to avoid sticking, until the mixture has been absorbed, abut 5 minutes.

Add the broth and the optional ingredients; stir the rice well, adjust the salt, cover the pan, and cook over medium heat until all the broth as been absorbed – airholes will probably form. Carefully dig to the bottom of the rice with a fork to see if any moisture remains; if so, then continue cooking over low heat for a few minutes more. Set aside, still covered, to give the rice a chance to continue steaming evenly for about 15 minutes

When serving, gently stir the rice from the bottom with a fork because the seasonings tend to sink to the bottom.