Fish Freaking Tacos!

The most unfortunate thing about my first 3-4 years living in Southern California is that I was blithely unaware of the deliciousness that is fish tacos. Fish tacos were, as legend has it, created just south of the border here. Someone decided to fry up a piece of white fish, stuff it in a tortilla, and top it with cabbage slaw and a decadent white sauce. So, perhaps, the original has evolved as food often does once it crosses our border and becomes somewhat Americanized, but I can't imagine a taco superior to this.

The key is fresh ingredients. I know, I know. You should always work with ingredients that are as fresh as you can find. But here you can definitely tell the difference because so little of this dish is cooked, with exception of the fish of course. And I like to use beer to make my batter for the fish. The carbonation gives the batter a light, crispy texture, reminiscent, I think, of tempura.

Fish Freaking Tacos for 2

For the fish:
1 lb flaky white fish (I love to use halibut, but my wallet does not. So in these penny-pinching times, I've found that tilapia works nicely too.)
1 c flour, packed
1 c or less light beer
2-3 c canola oil
corn tortillas

For the pico de gallo:
1 tomato, seeded and chopped
1/2 jalapeno, seeded and chopped
1/4 red onion, diced
cilantro, chopped
juice of 1/2 a lime
salt

For the white sauce:
1/4 c sour cream
2 tbsp light mayo
zest and juice of 1 lime

For the cabbage slaw:
1/4 red cabbage, sliced into ribbons
juice of 1 lime
salt


Heat the canola oil in a deep pot, filling it only about a quarter of the way up. I always end up burning myself here (I'm a bit accident-prone in the kitchen), so please be careful.

In the meantime, toss the cabbage ribbons, lime juice, and salt together and set aside. I like to make the slaw first, because allowing it to marinate in the lime juices softens it a bit and gives it a gorgeous flavor. Then, for the white sauce, combine the sour cream, mayo, lime zest and juice. Refrigerate until ready to use. Next, toss together the chopped tomato, jalapeno, onion, cilantro, lime juice, season with salt, and set aside.

Whisk the flour with salt in a medium bowl. Stir in the beer to combine. The batter should be quite thick. Next, cut the fish fillets into strips about 1 to 1 1/2 inches wide and 3 or 4 inches long. Dip each strip of fish in the batter and coat thoroughly. When the canola oil is ready to go, carefully drop a couple or three strips of battered fish into the oil to cook. It takes only about 4 minutes per batch and I always try to turn the fish at least once. Once neat trick to use when frying (that I saw on television the other day) is to carefully drop in the food away from you, or release the food into the oil toward the back of the pot of oil. That way if the oil splashes, it splashes away from you and not on your delicate arms or clothing.

So, once you've worked through your batches of battered fish, it's time to assemble the taco. In each corn tortilla goes 1 or 2 pieces of fish, depending of how big you cut your strips. Next pour on a spoon-full of the white sauce, and top with pico de gallo, and cabbage slaw. A couple extra squeezes of lime juice here never hurts too. And it's fiesta time!