Easy fish tacos

This might be the perfect summer dish. We've made a version of these before, but you can't always get fresh halibut from the fish market in Santa Barbara! We used Trader Joe's battered halibut this time, which is really nice and makes the recipe super easy. Last time we garnished our tacos with pico de gallo, but this time we did a mango salsa. However, we still used Trader Joe's Cilantro Dressing (which is insanely good) for our fish taco sauce. In my last fish taco post I offered a substitute for the dressing, which I hadn't tried. I recently tried a sauce made with sour cream, chopped cilantro, lime, and salt, which was very good and I think would be a nice substitute if you don't have a TJ's nearby.

Ingredients
-frozen battered white fish, like halibut, tilapia, or cod
~6 tortillas
-packaged slaw
-TJ's Cilantro Dressing

Slaw
-mango, diced
-handful of cilantro, roughly chopped
-1 jalapeno, finely diced (use less depending on your spice preferences)
-juice from 1.5 limes
-1 red pepper, finely diced
-1 red onion, finely diced
-salt and pepper to taste

Steps
1. Cook fish as directed.

2. While fish is cooking, assemble the mango salsa by mixing all salsa ingredients together.
3. Once fish is done, heat tortillas for a few minutes in a skillet or the oven.
4. Assemble tacos with fish, slaw, dressing, mango salsa, and a squeeze of lime.

Coconut shrimp salad with grapefruit dressing

(This is an adapted recipe from Cooking Light.) This salad is super refreshing! The creamy avocado, tart grapefruit, and sweet coconut all went really well together. I'll definitely be making this again.

Ingredients (makes enough for 3 large salads)
-18 frozen coconut shrimp
-Head of Romaine lettuce, roughly chopped
-1 avocado, cut into cubes
-1 grapefruit
-1 shallot, finely diced
-2 T EVOO
-1 T sugar
-salt & pepper

Steps
1. Cook shrimp as directed
2. While shrimp is cooking, make dressing. Peel and section grapefruit. (To peel the grapefruit, I cut it in half and then just cut the peel off in pieces with a knife.) Juice 1/3-1/4 of the grapefruit (you want about 1/3 C of juice). Chop the rest of the grapefruit up into small pieces. Add scallion, EVOO, sugar, salt, and pepper to juice and whisk.
3. Make salad by topping lettuce with avocado, grapefruit pieces, shrimp and topping with dressing.

Best Ever Fish Tacos

My husband and I agree that this might be one of the best things that I've ever posted on Grad Gastronomy. I think several things went into making these fish tacos so amazing...unfortunately I can't take credit for them. First, was the super fresh (i.e., caught that day) halibut we used from the local fish market. Second, was the incredible Trader Joe's cilantro dressing we used for our fish taco sauce. However, I think even without all those things you could still recreate this recipe and wind up with some damn good fish tacos.

Ingredients (enough for about 6/7 small tacos)
-1 lb fresh halibut (or other white fish)
-1 C flour
~1 C beer
-1 small bag of pre-sliced cabbage
-pico de gallo (see link for recipe)
-Trader Joe's cilantro dressing (if you can't find that see below for a substitute)
-8 fresh corn tortillas
~1/2 C canola oil
-1 lime, cut into 8 slices

Potential sauce substitute (Note: I haven't actually tried this)

-1/4 C mayonnaise or plain yogurt
-1 T lime juice
-3 tablespoons chopped cilantro
-1 clove garlic, pressed or finely minced
-1/8 teaspoon cumin
-1 tablespoon water

-Whisk all of above together

Steps
(preheat oven to 350)
1. Cut your fish into pieces about half the size of your palm.

2. Mix your batter by adding the flour to a large bowl. Add in about 3/4 C beer. Stir. Keep slowing pouring in beer and stirring until your batter gets to be a pancake like consistency.

3. Submerge all your fish pieces in the bowl and make sure to get them nice and coated.
4. Heat a large skillet over medium to medium-high with about a centimeter of oil in the bottom (the amount of oil will vary depending on pan size). Make sure to wait until oil is hot before adding your fish. This will ensure it gets a good crunch.
5. Test your oil with a little drop of batter to see that it's hot enough...you want the batter to begin sizzling and browning. However, you don't want your oil so hot your batter burns.
6. Put your corn tortillas on a cookie sheet and stick in the oven to get warm.
7. Carefully add in all your fish pieces to the oil. Fry for about 2-3 minutes then flip and fry for another 2 minutes.

8. Transfer fish to a paper towel and pat to remove excess oil.
9. Assemble tacos by adding fish, dressing, slaw, and pico to your corn tortilla.

10. Garnish with lime slices.

Coconut Shrimp with Fiery Mango Sauce

This was a total blog win! Unfortunately, the main picture's not that great...I probably should've gotten one without the mango sauce, or with the mango sauce more artfully dribbled on. In any case, the shrimp turned out great and the sauce was awesome. We ended up pouring it all over the ho-hum rice we made to go with it.
I made this recipe with medium sized shrimp, but I'd recommend using the larger kind so that you don't have to do as much battering and frying. Also, this make a ton of sauce...like 1.5 cups...so just be ready. Like I said, the sauce was awesome, and probably would be good on pork or chicken if you save it.

Ingredients
~1/2 pound of shrimp, peeled and deveined, but leave tails on (or just buy the frozen kind like I did that comes peeled and deveined)
-2/3 C shredded, flaked coconut
-2/3 C panko
-1/3 C cornstarch
-3 egg whites
-2.5 T canola oil
-1 T EVOO
Sauce
-1 can mango nectar
-2/3 red onion, diced
-2 cloves garlic, diced
-2 T fresh ginger, diced
-2 T diced jalepenos (less if you don't like spicy)
-2 T fresh lime juice

Steps
(The recipe called for you to pulse your coconut and panko in a food processor...I didn't do this, but you can if you want)
1. Saute your onion, garlic, and ginger with EVOO in a medium sized sauce pan.
2. Add mango nectar and pepper, bring to a boil. To reduce, let boil uncovered for about 12 minutes.
3. Remove sauce from heat, let sit for 10 minutes. Then blend sauce in a blender or food processor, stir in lime, set aside.

4. Mix coconut and panko in a shallow bowl. Also put cornstarch in a small, shallow bowl, and do the same for egg whites. (I've pasted a pic of my "working station set-up" below.)

5. Working with one shrimp at a time, dip the shrimp in the cornstarch, then egg whites, then coconut mixture. Once you've battered all your shrimp you can fry them up.
6. To fry: heat a large skillet (I used a wok) to medium with 2 T canola oil. Add as many shrimp as you can to pan (I did two batches), and cook for about 2.5 minutes or until browned on one side. While shrimp are cooking, spritz the tops with cooking spray. Carefully flip shrimp over (I highly recommend using tongs), and cook for another 2.5 minutes.

7. Transfer shrimp to a plate covered with paper towels, and repeat with remaining shrimp.
8. Serve shrimp with sauce on top or on the side.

Roasted Shrimp and Orzo

To preface, I was not feeling very good when I made this, so I didn't take any pictures while cooking :(
If you like dill and lemon (two of my favorites), you will probably like this recipe. You could make this without the shrimp, or sub tofu or chicken.

Ingredients:

-¾ pound orzo pasta

-½ C freshly squeezed lemon juice (3 large lemons)

-½ C EVOO

-Some kosher salt & fresh ground black pepper

-1 lb shrimp, peeled and deveined

-1 C chopped fresh dill

-1 hothouse cucumber, seeded, and medium diced

-1/8-1/4 C finely diced red onion

-¾ pound good feta cheese, large dice

Steps:

(Preheat oven to 400)

1. Fill a large pot with water, add 1 tablespoon of salt and a splash of oil, and bring the water to a boil. Add the orzo and simmer for 9 to 11 minutes, stirring occasionally, until it's cooked al dente. 

2. While orzo is cooking, place the shrimp on a sheet pan, drizzle with olive oil, and sprinkle with salt and pepper. Toss to combine and spread out in a single layer. Roast for 5 to 6 minutes in oven, until the shrimp are cooked through, but not overcooked.   

3. Once orzo is done, drain and pour into a large bowl. 

4. Whisk together the lemon juice, 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 tsp salt and 1 tsp of pepper. Pour over the hot pasta and stir well.

5. Add the shrimp to the orzo and then add the dill, cucumber, onion. Toss well. Add the feta and stir carefully. Set aside at room temperature for 1 hour to allow the flavors to blend, or refrigerate overnight. If refrigerated, taste again for seasonings and bring back to room temperature before serving.

Fish Tacos with Mango Salsa

This is a slightly modified version of the one in Cooking Light. Although the batter did not really stick to my fish (which meant it wasn't very crunchy) these were still really good. The salsa was super delicious, and would be great on it's own.

Ingredients
-1 or 2 ripe mangoes, diced
-2 T (or more if you like) fresh, chopped cilantro-1.5 T lime juice
-1 T (or more if you want it spicier) diced jalepeno
-1/4 C finely diced red onion
-1 lb fresh white fish (recipe called for halibut, but I used tilapia...recipe also called for 1.5 lbs, but that was way too much for 8 small tacos)
-1 cup beer (PBR for the win)
-3/4 C flour
-1.5 tsp pepper
-1 tsp salt
-1 tsp garlic powder (or use garlic salt and use less regular salt)
~1/3 C canola oil (the recipe called for 5 C, but that seemed crazy to me)

Steps
1. Dice mango. I have always had a hard time doing this correctly, but I found a nice Youtube video that walks you through it. Basically, the seed is long, flat, and hard, and runs through the center of the fruit. To get the most mango for your buck, you want to cut off the sides (or "cheeks"), and then score them (sort of like the avocado technique). Then you just chop off the scored pieces into a bowl. You can then try to cut off any remaining fruit flesh from around the seed.

2. Add onion, cilantro, jalapeno, and lime juice to bowl, and mix mango salsa. Set aside.

3. Mix up your batter (beer, flour, salt, pepper, garlic) with a whisk.
4. Dunk fish into batter and transfer to frying pan (make sure your oil is nice and hot).
5. Cook fish 4-5 minutes, turning once. (You may need to do this in two batches.)

6. Drain fish on paper towls.
7. Add some fish and salsa to warm tortilla and enjoy.