Tuesday, September 19, 2006

Bluefish Fajitas

Remember that tomatillo salsa verde I wrote about last week? Trying to make 2 servings of sauce is almost impossible, so I always have leftovers. And they often become the inspiration for dinner the next day. The leftovers of salsa verde put me in a Mexican mood (or to be more precise Tex-Mex or Cali-Mex). The result of this inspiration were bluefish fajitas -- probably completely unauthentic, but terribly good. I sprinkled skin-on bluefish fillet with salt, pepper, cumin, and coriander and seared it on the skin side in a cast iron pan with a little oil until crispy. Then flipped it, spread sliced peppers and onions around it and finished it in the oven until done (about 5 minutes at 400F). The bluefish then went onto a plate to rest, while I finished cooking peppers and onions on the stove top over high heat. In went a little minced garlic, a good squirt of lime juice, a large handful of minced cilantro, and flaked bluefish (yes, I do eat the skin, but you don't have to ;)

I served it with warm tortillas, guacamole, chopped tomatoes, "Total" Greek yogurt (instead of sour cream), and of course tomatillo salsa verde. Yum!

Ignore the presentation on the picture above, and roll your fajitas to enclose the filling completely. The one on the picture is open purely for food porn purposes -- you didn't want to miss the filling, did you?

Fish substitutions: red snapper, grouper, striped bass, cod, haddock, halibut, tilapia, barramundi, mahi-mahi, swordfish, tuna (seared rare), or any fish leftovers.

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

If you like fish in Mexican dishes, try El Pelon by Fenway - they have superb fish tacos (white fish in "breading" made from corn flour and spices), plantains, calabacitas, and horchata. And my favorite Mexican restaurant at home makes an awesome duck fajitas that are to die for with some sort of sweet/spicy/sour chutney-like sauce and other fixings.

Your food porn comment cracks me up!

I love the idea of using Total Greek Yogurt instead of sour cream - much healthier. Do you think it would work in a sweet raisin/cinnamon (gf because I'm using Tinkyada linguine) kugel?

Thanks!

Helen said...

Hi Anonymous,

I don't get to Fenway that often, but good fish tacos deserve a special trip :)

Not sure about using yogurt in a kugel. My worry is that it might curdle, but I am not very good with chemistry and baking. Try posting this question on chowhound home cooking board.

Cheers,
-Helen

Anonymous said...

This is about Stonyfield Farm yogurt, not Total Greek yogurt, but I thought it might be applicable.

I also found this article on strained (Greek-style) yogurts.

Helen said...

Hi Anonymous,

Thanks for the yogurt links. Sorry about reposting them. Blogger software is silly and it messed up the style sheets (what makes the web pages display properly) because of the long URLs. I just put your URLs into HTML so that they display as links, but left your post as is otherwise.

Cheers,
-Helen

Anonymous said...

Oh that salsa looks great and the Greek yogurt works wonders. I love substituting that for sour cream. Yum!

Toni said...

That first shot of the taco is great! I could almost reach into my screen, pick it up and eat it.

Helen said...

Thanks Toni!

Food photography is not something that comes easily to me, but it's really exciting when you get a good shot. Trust me, it tastes much better than it looks :) Fajitas are not the most photogenic dish, but oh the flavor!

Cheers,
-Helen

Anonymous said...

I love the idea of a fish fajita!

Yum!

Paz