Blackened Fish Tacos with Salsa Verde and Pickled Red Onions

This is an ode to healthy fish inside of the warm corn tortilla.
I've recently been experimenting with my gas-stove's broiler.  Probably because its the summer, so I've been grilling over an open flame and now that it has been raining relentlessly I need to satisfy the urge to use direct fire elsewhere.

So, instead of pan frying the fish as per my usual blackening methods I used the broiler.  However, I found the results disappointingly similar, so please feel free to interchange them.

I have a general seasoning that I season all of my taco fillings with and this uses that seasoning plus a little extra.  The seasoning for me is a dash of this and a scoop of that so I tried to quantify here: Taco Tuesday Seasoning


Blackened Fish Tacos with Salsa Verde and Pickled Red Onions

Serves 4-5

Ingredients for Fish

2 lbs of Strong White Fish (basa, cod, tilapia, etc)
1 Tbsp Whole Toasted and Ground Cumin
1 tsp Whole Toasted and Ground Coriander
Taco Tuesday Seasoning-replace the cumin with the above hand toasted and ground cumin
2 Tbsp Sofritto
1 whole canned in adobo chipotle pepper

Ingredients for Quick Pickled Onions

1/2 Red Onion
1/2 Cup of White Vinegar
2 Tbsp of White Sugar
1 tps Salt

Ingredients for Salsa Verde

2 Tomatillos
1 Small Jalapeño
2 cloves of garlic
2 Tbsp Cilantro
2 Tbsp Water
1 Tbsp Oil
Pinch of Salt


Ingredients for Toppings (optional)

2 Thinly Sliced Radishes
Shredded Cheese (I blended sharp cheddar, mozzarella, and pepper jack)
Chopped Cilantro
Seared Green Peppers

Directions: 

Pickled Onions
1. Slice onion into lengthwise slices
2. Briefly cook onions in a pan until translucent
3. Transfer onions into a bowl
4. Put white vinegar, sugar, and salt into the pan and bring to a boil
5. Pour over onions or put onions back into the pan so that the liquid fully covers the onions

Salsa Verde

1. Peel and wash the stickiness off of thr tomatillos with soap and water
2. Roast tomatillos and garlic in a pan over medium heat until slightly browned
3. Place tomatillos, jalapeño, cilantro, and salt into a blender and combine. 
4. Slowly add in oil.  The mixture may be slightly too thick.  
5. Add water to create a salsa consistency, not a paste.

Blackened Fish

1. Toast the cumin and coriander in a pan for about 30 seconds until they become aromatic.
2. Grind cumin and coriander into as fine of a powder as possible and mix into Taco Seasoning mixture.
3 . Season fish with salt and pepper then liberally rub the spices all over both sides of the fish.
4.  Combine sofritto and chiptole peppers in blender.
5. Paint sauce onto fish over seasoning
6. Heat 1 Tbsp of oil over high heat until very hot, but not smoking and place fish into sizzling oil.
Tip: Cook fish until you can see the color halfway up the fish (about 3 minutes depending on the type of fish you bought) flip fish and continue cooking until cooked through.
7. Finish with coarse sea salt.

Putting it all together! Dealers choice because it all gets shoved deliciously into you mouth in a bite or two.

But, my personal favorite methodology to construct the perfect taco is:
Taco shell, base of 1 Tbsp salsa verde, fish, top with pickled onion, sprinkle cheese, a few red radishes or green peppers for good crunch, a dash of cilantro to finish it off.
PS for the featured picture below this was late in the night because I was too hungry to take a picture sooner, so there were no more pickled onions or cilantro left.

Enjoy!