Baja Fish Taco

Chris and I travelled up and down the coast of Baja California, in 2015, eating the best fish tacos known to man at crowded food carts dotted on street corners. The tacos were so cheap, one or two dollars, the fish fresh from the sea, coated in a crunchy light batter, garnished with shredded cabbage, and a choice of zingy, spicy and refreshing salsas. The taqueros here didn’t use digital thermometers, nor did they have deep-fat fryers. Years of cooking fish tacos had given them an instinctive knack of cooking the fish perfectly every time. This is our take on the Baja fish taco, and whilst it’s not a like-for-like copy (as that would be impossible) it uses the best of British produce to recreate a Baja classic.

Servings

Total time

minutes

Ingredients

200 g rice flour
100 g plain flour
1 egg (beaten)
1 teaspoon baking powder
1 teaspoon fine salt
1 teaspoon chilli powder
½ teaspoon dried oregano
200 ml sparkling water (cold, or light beer)
500 ml rapeseed oil (for frying)
1 pollack fillet (large, skinned and pin boned, cut into 8 evenly sized rectangular pieces)
100 g rice flour
8 corn tortillas
100 g lime aioli
½ head white cabbage (finely chopped)
100 ml pico de gallo
1 jalapeno chilli (finely sliced)
handful coriander (leaves picked)
4 limes (halved)
cascabel chilli salt

Method

Heat the rapeseed oil in a deep heavy-based pan to 190°C. Make the batter by mixing together the flours, egg, baking powder, salt, chilli powder and oregano. Slowly pour in the sparkling water or beer and whisk until you have a batter-like consistency; ignore any lumps. Dip one piece of fish at a time into the rice flour. Using tongs, dip the fish into the batter and then gently place the fish in the hot oil. Be sure to put the fish into the oil away from your body in case of oil splashes. Repeat with 3 of the other pieces of fish and cook for 4 minutes. Take the first 4 pieces out of the oil and leave to drain on kitchen paper. Repeat with the other 4 pieces of fish. Assemble your tacos by warming the tortillas, place a dollop of aïoli on them, followed by the fish, cabbage, pico de gallo, a couple of slices of jalapeño and some coriander. Sprinkle with cascabel chilli salt and add a squeeze of lime juice.