Monday night is football night and football night calls for some delicious food. Tonight I decided I'd make barbecue fish tacos along with some skewered grilled potatoes/tomatoes. Simple, delicious, and perfect for the occasion.
You can't have a fish taco without fish, so I defrosted two slabs of tilapia. The fish defrosts pretty quickly, it was ready to go in under 8 minutes.
While the fish defrosts, I make a rather simple marinade. I used 1/4th a cup of olive oil, 2 teaspoons of white vinegar, 2 minced cloves of garlic, 1 and 1/2 teaspoons of honey, and 2 teaspoons of lime juice. It takes about a minute to make and it gives the fish a great tang once it's done cooking.
After slathering the fish in the marinade, I'm ready to add my real seasoning. I cover the fish in cayenne pepper (just pinch it between your fingers and sprinkle it over both side of the fish, cayenne pepper is hot do don't go overboard) and my BBQ dry rub. The recipe for the dry rub is VERY simple and I'll post it later at the end of the thread. This dry rub is delicious and easy to make, you'll want to make a huge batch and use it everytime you BBQ. Trust me.
This is what the fish looks like after being slathered with the rub/marinade/pepper:
Set the fish in the fridge for about 4-5 hours before you cook it. Now it's time to make the sauce. Fish tacos here in socal have a wonderful sauce that is both sweet, tangy, and a little bit spicy. Thankfully, that sauce is incredibly easy to make and can be made in under a minute.
Get a bowl and put 2-3 spoonfuls of plain white yogurt in the bowl. Then put 2-3 spoonfuls of mayonaisse in the bowl. Start stirring it while adding lime juice until you get a nice runny consistency. Then add in a few shakes of oregano and a pinch of cayenne pepper and mix it again. This amount will cover about 4-5 fish tacos, if you plan on making a lot just use more yogurt/mayo mix. The mix of yogurt and mayo doesn't sound too good on paper but it tastes great in your mouth and pretty much every taco shop uses a variation of this sauce here in SoCal.
Close-up of the sauce:
Make a lot of the sauce, it's very versatile. You can use it as a chip/vegetable dip and even as a salad dressing. It's good stuff.
Now we're gonna prepare the potatoes. Peel the potatoes and then boil them for about 10 minutes until they are soft.
For a potato marinade we are mixing olive oil, basil, dryed rosemary, and sea salt. Coat the potatoes in this marinade as they dry and start soaking your skewers in water.
What is a taco without cabbage and tomato? Chop up some green cabbage and tomato to sprinkle on your tacos.
To add some zest to it, sprinkle some lime juice over the vegetables.
When you're ready to cook the fish, wrap it in foil. Fish when cooked can become overly tender and slip through the grill. To prevent that I'm wrapping it in foil and poking some holes in it.
Then throw those suckers on the grill!
Cook your corn tortillas with a small amount of butter in a pan. To be a real mexican, wrap your fish tacos in two tortillas. They fall apart less easily that way.
Unfortunately, I boiled my potatos too long and they were too soft to skewer. No problem! I wrapped the potatoes in foil with some sliced tomatoes and threw the package on the grill for about 6-8 minutes. It was a delicious side dish.
Now everything is done and I'm ready to eat with my raspberry tea.
The food was delicious. The fish was extremely tender and it cooked very quickly, taking about 10-12 minutes to cook fully. To check the fish, open the foil a little bit and poke it with a fork. The fish should flake around the pressure and it'll look golden brown on the outside. The fish really absorbed the flavor of the rub and was both tangy and sweet, the flavors mixed perfectly with the sauce.
The only thing left to do now is watch some football!
Those were some great fish tacos. Until next time TL! I'm thinking about making a wienerschnitzel next. What do you think I should cook?