Theme Recipe: Baja Fried Fish Tacos

Baja Fried Fish Tacos

This is for last week's Shark Day.  I have certainly eaten shark meat in my time, I am a Floridian and shark steaks were in just about every supermarket seafood section, not to mention the local seafood markets.  Mostly the meat was grilled, but people made skewers of it, put it in ceviches and fried it; there was even a Greek joint that served shark gyros, which I will admit was delicious.  But I certainly don't eat shark any more, they are far too endangered.  But the famous fish taco of Mexico, or actually Baja Mexico is usually made with shark.  Unlike fish tacos in other parts of the country, these tacos are filled with deep fried fish and placed in a freshly cooked corn tortilla and handed over to you.  The rest is up to the diner.  These stands (and the most famous one is in Ensenada, see the clip below) have all kinds of things to put on your taco.  The clip below is from Tony Bourdain's No Reservations.

The Fish:

Any firm fleshed white fish, 1 slice per taco

1 cup flour

1/2 cup Masa Harina

1 tsp salt

1/2 tsp. baking soda

2 eggs 

1/4 tsp. cumin

1/2 tsp. cayenne powder

1 tsp. powdered mustard

Beer to wet the batter down

Hot Vegetable Oil for deep frying

White Corn Tortillas

Toppings Include:

Cabbage

Radishes

Sliced White Onion topped with Chopped Cilantro

Chopped Cabbage (either white or purple, or both)

Chopped or sliced Sweet Green Pepper

Shredded Lettuce

Avocado Slices

Fresh Limes

Fresh Sour Cream

Fresh Mexican Salsa

Pickled Whole Jalapenos and Carrot (with some onion)

Cooked Salsa made with Chipotle

Creamy Smooth Guacamole

A variety of other Homemade Salsa (such as green sauce, 

    Blended sauce with habanero, Sweet orange pepper sauce, etc.)

A variety of bottled hot sauces (in Baja, they even use Tabasco sauce)

Mix all the dry ingredients of the batter together.  Beat the eggs together with 1/2 cup beer and add to the dry ingredients and mix well.  Pour in just enough beer to make a nice thick batter for the fish.  While you are making the batter, heart the oil.  

Dry the fish and dip well into the batter and quickly fry for 3 to 5 minutes.  While fish is cooking, heat the tortillas on a griddle.  Drain fish and place in tortilla and hand it over for the diner to top.  The tacos below are the fish, white cabbage, lime, Mexican fresh salsa, cream, creamy guacamole, and chipotle sauce.

How about adding one of these to fish tacos!!