The Escandon's Family Blog

We had fish tacos again this week. I had plenty left over from last week (except I had to use a different kind of fish this week) so I decided to cook up some fish tacos again. They are super yummy and fairly easy to whip up.

Some of you non-Southern Californians may be a little turned off by the idea of fish tacos, but don't knock till you try them! They are a purely Baja-California thing. I remember living in Corpus, surrounded by taco stands, and unable to find a fish taco to save my life. I was really surprised too, considering it is a gulf city with a lot of fishing going on.

I thought I would post my wanna-be Rubios Fish Tacos for those of you who may want to take a walk on the wild side and try these.

For 10 Tacos You will need:

• Beer Battered Fish (Use a mild whitefish like cod or a similar variety will do. You can fry them up yourself with a beer batter or do what I do and use Gorton's Beer Batter Fish Fillets. They come 10 in a box. This week I didn't have any so I just used fish sticks- they turned out just as good.)
• 10 Corn Tortillas (Flour can also be used here, they make good burritos)
• 1/2 Cup Plain Yogurt
• 1/2 Cup Mayonnaise
• 1 Head of green cabbage, shredded
• Prepared Salsa (Pace Picante is what we use in our home. I will include a good recipe for salsa if you want to have a shot at your own.)
• 1 Lime, cut into wedges

To Prepare:

If you decide to use the Gorton's fish, cook according to package directions. It is wise to make sure they are crispy so you can just leave them in longer, and make sure you flip the fillets at least once during the baking process. While that is cooking (or while you are making your own), prepare the rest of the garnish for your tacos. You can use this time to shred your cabbage and slice your limes. In a small bowl combine the yogurt and mayonnaise together; mix well. Set aside. Heat up a flat skillet (what you normally use to cook up tortillas or pancakes, grilled cheese sandwiches etc.) Heat each tortilla on both sides until cooked but still flexible, don't let them get too crispy or you won't be able to fold them. Your fish should be ready. On each tortilla, put the hot fish, white sauce, salsa, cabbage, and a squeeze of lime. You finished taco should look something like the photo above. You can even make it a fun dinner and allow everyone to assemble his own! These can be served alone or with chips and salsa, rise & beans, whatever your favorites are!

I found a copycat recipe here. It has a good recipe for the beer batter as well as the salsa. Before I did a web search on the fish taco & white sauce my tacos were naked. I could never figure out what Rubio's "secret sauce" was.
Salsa from link above
1 Clove Garlic, peeled & minced (or use the jarred stuff!)
6 Ripe Tomatoes, peeled, seeded, & diced (A couple cans of crushed would work here too!)
1/2 Onion, minced
2 Tbsp Cilantro, chopped
2 Jalapenos, seeded & chopped
1 1/2 tsp Salt
1/4 tsp pepper

Mix all together in a bowl to sit before you start on your tacos & it will get the flavors going.

I found a couple of cool links on the history of the Fish Taco, pretty cool stuff... if you are as easily amused as I am!

Fish Tacos - Ensenada, Mexico claims to be the birth place of the fish taco, and they are advertised at restaurants throughout the city where many claim that their taco is the original. The best place to sample them is at any of the small food stands that line the streets around the Mercado Negro, Ensenada’s incredible fish market. The fish tacos served are simply small pieces of batter-coated, fried fish in a hot corn or wheat tortilla.

People in the coastal areas of Mexico have been eating fish tacos for a long time. The history of fish tacos could seemly go back thousands of years to when indigenous North American peoples first wrapped the plentiful offshore catch into stone-ground-corn tortillas. The people of Ensenada say their port town is the fish taco's true home, dating at least from the opening of the Ensenada mercado, in 1958.

The people of San Diego, California, have been hooked on fish tacos since 1983. In fact, fish tacos are the fast-food signature dish of San Diego: they're cheap to buy and fast to make. Fish tacos were popularized in the United States by Ralph Rubio, who first tasted them while on spring break in Baja, Mexico. According to the story he tells, there was one Baja vendor he especially liked, a man named Carlos, who ran a hole-in-the-wall taco stand with a 10-foot counter and a few stools. Carlos fried fish to order and put it on a warm tortilla. Customers added their own condiments. Rubio tried to persuade Carlos to move to San Diego, but Carlos was happy where he was and would not budge. He did agree, however, to share his recipe, which Rubio scrawled on a piece of paper pulled from his wallet. Several years later, Rubio opened his own restuarnat in San Diego, called Rubio's - Home of the Fish Taco. Today, fish tacos are legendary and are sole throughout San Diego and the Southwest.

and

... [S]omewhere in Baja California, sometime in the last 30 or 40 years, someone concocted what is generally considered to be the prototypical fish taco. According to aficionados - call them the codnoscenti - this humble delicacy consists of a lightly battered mild white fish that is deep-fried, then served in a corn tortilla (often two) with shredded cabbage, a thin sour-cream- or mayonnaise-based sauce, a bit of salsa, and a most vital spritzito of lime.

On this everyone agrees. What everyone doesn't agree on is where in Baja the archetype originated. San Diego fish-taco mogul Ralph Rubio, whose chain of 35 stores makes him the great white shark of the fish-taco world, cites San Felipe as the source. But the senoras hustling and hawking virtually identical fish tacos at virtually identical stands at Ensenada's fish market won't stand for that. They say their port town is the fish taco's true home, dating at least from the opening of the Ensenada mercado, in 1958.

I hope at least one or two of you will give these a shot and let me know how they turned out. Flour tortillas can be used to make burritos, just roll them up! That makes a great lunch for the next day if you have leftovers! Enjoy!

Labels: rachael, Recipes

Posted by MamaEscandon on Friday, March 16, 2007 at 2:37 PM | Permalink