- Hey, I'm John Kanell.
And today on "Preppy Kitchen",
we're making easy, delicious fish tacos.
So, let's get started.
First off, I'm making a quick marinade for my fish
just to give it some extra flavor,
because you want your fish tacos
to have all the deliciousness.
One teaspoon of ground cumin.
Half a teaspoon of chili powder.
Quarter teaspoon of cayenne pepper for some kick.
Half a teaspoon of salt.
And now, I have some lime juice
but I am gonna do
something unsurprising and zest the lime first.
I might add this to the sauce later.
I love lime zest.
Now that my lime is naked, I can juice it up.
(knife clatter)
So, add that right in there.
We're adding some acid into this
and it's gonna give us a wonderful flavor.
And also, it's gonna start denaturing
the proteins in the fish
which is why we can't let this sit for too long.
It's a really quick marinate.
It's just 15 minutes.
If you let fish sit in acid too long
it'll like fully cook through.
Doesn't actually cook to kill bacteria
but it cooks in the texture.
So, the texture will change, which is how you make ceviche.
Give us a quick whisk just to bring it together.
(liquid sloshing)
I have one pound of like a nice cod right now.
(paper crinkling)
It's a big piece of fish.
It's too big for this like to sit in,
so we're just gonna turn it over every once in a while.
So, leave that in here.
Just gonna turn it over.
Actually, (bowl clatters)
no, we're not.
I'm gonna cut this in half. (chuckles)
There we go. Much better.
Ah, wash your hands, get another bowl out.
Now, we're gonna make a delicious sauce for our fish tacos
while it marinates.
(water sloshing)
For the sauce, we need a couple ingredients
starting with half a cup or 120 grams of sour cream.
I want a quarter cup or 60 grams of mayonnaise.
Adds a nice tang to this
but if you don't wanna use mayonnaise,
just skip it, it's totally optional.
Kind of.
To give this some more zing,
I'm going to use more lime juice now.
Two tablespoons or about the juice of a lime.
You can add more lime juice for more runny sauce.
And if you don't like lime juice, I don't know what to say.
So, my scale's done.
I'm gonna add a little bit of garlic powder.
It's about a quarter of a teaspoon.
Now, I'm gonna give this a whisk and a taste.
I'm tempted to add some extra things to it
that aren't in the blog post
just because that's how I feel today.
I hope that when you're in the kitchen,
you feel that you have the freedom to try new things,
new flavor combinations, and really play with recipes.
I also wanna add in about a teaspoon of sriracha sauce.
It's a new bottle.
Teaspoon of sriracha.
or less or more, it's totally up to you.
(bowl clinking)
Now, a taste.
Mmm.
That is good.
But I wanna make it even better.
So, here's the deal.
I'm using my rasp to grate some fresh garlic in here.
I don't want it to be like overwhelmingly garlicky.
So, I'm just adding like half or a third of a clove
along with a pinch of lime zest.
Two pinches of lime zest.
Tasting number two.
I like that much more now.
Okay, this is gonna hang in the fridge
while we cook our fish up.
It's very quick though.
My fish is almost ready
but today I wanna make some fresh salsa for my tacos.
If you want,
you could just dice some tomato or eat it plain.
Almost anything works with a fish taco
and there are so many variations.
But since I have all these tomatoes and everything else.
Why not have a little fresh Pico?
Okay.
(knife chopping)
Give everything a nice chop.
I'm just doing this to taste basically.
I'm not using the recipe today.
So it's like, oh about half a cup of diced red onion.
Gonna add several tomatoes in there.
Give them a nice chop.
I was reading about the history of fish tacos
'cause I was interested in like, what's the deal here?
Fish tacos were popularized in the US
in the last like 50 years.
And now they're like kind of ubiquitous.
You can get them anywhere.
They came from Baja, Mexico.
So, in places like Ensenada and San Felipe,
there's so much delicious fresh fish
coming outta the ocean every single day.
Why not eat it in a tortilla?
And you could just have it just like that.
You can add a little bit of lime juice.
You could add salsa.
You could add like a crema sauce.
There's so many different ways to enjoy it.
Either grilled or fried.
It's such a pleasure.
So, as long as you have fresh ingredients,
this is something you can make at home
in just a few minutes and really enjoy.
Handful of fresh cilantro.
One of my favorites.
Some jalapeno.
Could add any chili you like.
This might look like a lot of jalapeno
but I've not been having any luck with hot jalapenos lately.
I'm gonna add a little sprinkle of cumin in here.
Grate some more garlic.
Watch your fingers.
To finish it off, we want some nice lime juice.
These guys have a good balance of acidity
to really wake the flavors up,
and that includes in the salsa as well.
Making these tacos really brings back some memories
of all those trips to Baja, California.
It makes me want to go back.
Give that a toss and what do you know?
It's time for our fish to get cooked up and delicious.
Look at this.
Ooh, that looks good already.
And a little bit of salt to taste.
Give that a mix and it's perfect.
Now, I want chips too.
This fish is looking lovely.
So, we're gonna cook it up now.
You just need to grab a big pan.
(pan clanking)
Like this.
Onto the flame.
One tablespoon or so of olive oil.
You could use any like higher heat oil that you like.
I used to like using avocado oil a lot
but it's not as easy to get where I live now.
Get the oil nice and hot.
We want it to simmer in the pan.
It's over medium high heat right now.
Come around and see the oil.
I want you to see what it looks like.
Come here.
It's not smoking, but look at that.
Do you see the ripple in the pan?
There we go.
The oil is hot.
My fish is ready and we're gonna cook it up.
You don't wanna have a lot of extra marinade on this.
So, (oil sizzling)
just shake that off.
(oil sizzling)
Whoa. (chuckles)
We're gonna cook this
for about three minutes on either side.
It'll take on a beautiful color.
And when it's cooked through,
it'll flake super easily with a fork.
(oil sizzling)
And in the meantime,
let's chop some cabbage and get everything ready to go
so we can assemble our amazing fish tacos.
My fish is getting ready.
And one of the main components
that I love in a fish taco is cabbage.
I love cabbage in general.
It adds so much like fresh flavor and a beautiful crunch.
And it's not like the crunch of a chip where like,
I love chips, I get it.
But it's like a fresh crunch that really sets things apart.
And then we'll just chop it
into some smaller bite size pieces and crumble it up.
It's been a couple minutes.
I wanna see if it flakes apart.
Beautiful.
It's almost ready.
This is a really thick cut of cod.
I was lucky to get it at the market.
Most of the times, you're having a thin cut
and that cooks like in less than two minutes per side.
So, just do the flake test
and see if it's ready to come apart.
And if it is, you're done.
If it isn't, just give it an extra minute.
Okay, I'm actually gonna cover this up.
Trap the heat in and let it cook through a bit more easily.
(bell chimes)
That should be ready. Let's take it out.
There we go.
Now, it's flaking apart easily.
That's what I wanna see.
Perfect.
We're moving this from heat.
And the one regret that I have with these tacos
is that I did not make fresh tortillas today.
If you've had fresh tortillas,
you know they are life-changingly delicious.
This is a really good brand though, so it's almost as good.
If you wanna see a tortilla recipe on the channel
you let me know.
I'm doing this the way my mom taught me.
Here we go.
Right on the flame.
And I was making fish tacos with my friend the other day.
Then I just lifted it up.
And she's like, "What are you doing?"
(laughs)
And I was like, "Oh, I'm just flipping it over."
And she's like, "Why are you using your hands?"
So I was like, "That's what you do. You use your hands."
And she's like, "Do not show people using your hands
to flip this over on an open flame."
And I was like, "Why?"
And she's like, "Hello?
You don't want them to burn theirselves."
If you don't wanna do this, you can use tongs.
It never occurred to me to use tongs
'cause I've never seen anyone do that in my life.
It's always been just like flipping it over.
And if you wanna know,
these are corn tortillas
but you could use flour too if you want.
Although, people have strong feelings about that,
so you can talk about that in the comments.
I'm not getting involved.
(gasps)
What's this?
Aah.
If you know, opening up an avocado that is not bruised
and horrible in the inside is a moment of pure joy.
So, I was reading an article
on the history of fish tacos as one does.
And it was intimating that originally fish tacos were fried
and then they became grilled as like a healthy thing.
But that literally can't be right.
I don't think it makes any sense.
My mom is from Mexico and she always remarks
on how like actually healthy most Mexican food is.
And what you find in the US is like very different.
So, I don't see them deep frying fish (chuckles)
at the local markets.
But you can let me know if I'm wrong.
Grab your tortilla.
You can do this basically any way that you want.
And I have to tell you that as someone
who takes photos of food when I'm not doing these videos,
it's very...
I just like don't know how to take
a good photo of a tortilla.
You can take a look at the blog post
and let me know if you think I did a good job or not.
I really tried hard on that one.
Some beautiful cabbage.
A little bit of my Pico.
Mmm
Ah, it's so beautiful.
And just a little bit more of this sauce on top
along with a few leaves of cilantro
and finish your tacos off with a spritz of lime juice.
If you don't have the lime at the end,
I'm disappointed in you.
It's so important.
And just like that, your tacos are ready to enjoy.
Mhmm.
So good and delicious, and fresh and crunchy
and creamy and amazing.
I hope you get a chance to make this recipe.
Maybe have it with a little bit of Agua Fresca.
And if you like this video, check out my Latin playlist.