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Are you wondering what you're having for dinner tonight? My name is Cassandra Coleman with Texas AgriLife Extension Service
and I've got the answer for you! Today we're going to make
Spicy Fish Tacos and they're going to be really delicious and it actually is really simple.
So, I've got my skillet on and I'm going to turn it down a little bit so I don't have the oil too too hot
but you do want it hot, so the skillet's on. . .so you want to do that with your stove top.
The ingredients that I have is tilapia. Tilapia is real mild in flavor
so you want to be real careful and not over-season it. I've actually made that mistake
and ruined my meal. So, it doesn't take a whole lot for it because it is mild in flavor.
One egg, or if you're doing a large amount, you do want the wash to have
two or three eggs in it. A teaspoon of salt, a half a cup of oil. . .
and if you're using a larger skillet, you want to make sure that it covers the entire skillet so that
way you can fry your fish, and this is olive oil which is really good for you.
OK, cayenne pepper, a tablespoon and a half of cayenne pepper.
And on cayenne pepper, you want to make sure, myself and my family we make
this really really hot. We like to have that flavor in there.
If you don't like hot and you're like my mother and you like mild, you can even do a half a teaspoon of cayenne pepper.
Be real careful with that. But again, for this recipe we're using
a tablespoon and a half. And then a tablespoon of pepper
and then these are actually cracker crumbs. And I used wheat crackers and
If you've got a toddler at home or a child at home, you could put them in a bag and have them mash them up
and that will occupy them which is a good thing when you're trying to prepare a meal and I know that from experience.
So, they can crumble them up, have fun and meanwhile, they are also helping you prepare
the meal so they'll take a little ownership in it and maybe want to eat it.
A half a cup of flour--and this is just regular flour--a teaspoon of
cilantro. Again, if you like a lot of cilantro, you can make it a tablespoon.
So it's whatever you want to do. And these right here on the side are condiments
for example, I just put some together. You can add more to it. You could put lettuce
with it. I've got onion, spinach, tomato, and cheese. You can use any type of
cheese you want or any toppings. I just like to add that for color, flavor, and also
it makes it more nutritious. So once you have all your toppings, that's something that you could choose
on what you want to put on there. You want to put your dry ingredients in a container
so I'm going to put the bread crumbs in here. Again, it really is helpful if you have a little
one helping you out, or even a teenager, they can take ownership in what they are doing.
We'll put the pepper. Now we're going to put the flour.
OK. Going to put the cayenne pepper (my favorite)
I like it hot. Going put the salt. If you're on a salt-free
diet, you could try to cut out the salt and use a salt substitute if you would like.
And then the cilantro. What I like about the cilantro is
it adds some flavor to it. But it also gives it some color, so it makes
it really pretty to look at. And for those of you out there
who said, "Fish tacos, yuck!" Please try this because I think once you try it
you're really going to like it. A friend of mine's husband named Michael said, "You need to do fish tacos."
So that put that bee in my bonnet and I thought, "Well, I'm going to make them." Well,
when I would tell people what I was doing, they would wrinkle up their noses.
So, try this, and then we'll see if you wrinkle your nose. You'll be excited about it.
So now I'm taking the tilapia and I'm going to put it in the egg wash.
Tilapia is really really good for you. It's nice and healthy
to eat. OK, while I'm letting that sit there, I'm going to go ahead and place
the oil in my. . .You want to be careful and not put it in there too too early because it will
get too hot. It can splatter and it can make a mess. I'm going to turn that temperature
a little bit up. And you want to coat this really really well.
I like to have a lot of breading on it.
It gives it a good flavor. And I'm just going to set that one aside while
that oil is warming up and do another one. And again, these are filets
and they come in a package of six and they're individualized. What's nice
is you slice that filet in half lengthwise and then
what you'll do is you'll have actually two tacos out of one filet.
And the advantage is there's six filets but you can actually make twelve tacos.
with it so it's very cost-efficient. I'm just going to put this breading on there,
and you can use bread. . .if you don't have a little one at home and you don't have time to mash up
the wheat crackers, you can actually use bread crumbs. You can use corn meal
if you want. You can be as creative as you want. Alright,
so I've got these two ready. And you can see that green on there, it's really pretty.
Tilapia is mild in flavor so keep that in mind whenever you're using seasoning.
And that's what you want to hear--you want to hear that little bit of sizzle
in that olive oil.
OK, I'm going to turn it up just another notch.
And what i'm going to do at this point because I really want to practice good food safety,
is I'm going to go wash my hands so that way I don't have to handle the food with this fish
and breading on my hands and raw egg, so I shall return. So as you can hear,
you can hear that sizzle. Now one of the tricks to whenever you're preparing something in oil
and you're frying it, is you don't want to keep turning it. It's kind of like what people tell you about
hamburgers--if you turn hamburger, you can ruin the flavor. So what you want to do is
you want to let sit there until it starts to brown. Once it's brown it gets solid
and that way you could turn it over and you won't lose a lot of breading. And a problem with losing a lot of breading
it is will congest your oil and you have to make sure that you use fresh oil too.
But, I wish you could smell this because it smells fantastic. And fish tacos are
good for you and they're delicious too. You just want to make sure that you complete,
that you put the whole amount of oil in the skillet so it covers the bottom of it.
So as you can see, it's starting to brown a little bit, you can see that cilantro
in there, it gives it a little bit of color. It smells great. Again, this is something that
it seems like a lot of ingredients but it really isn't because you are basically putting them all in
the bowl and then you're using that as a breading for your fish.
And it doesn't take a whole lot to season it. So at this point, I'm starting to
see it browning, which is a good thing. That's what you want to see.
And fish doesn't take a long time to cook either. So once it starts to get
to where like the shrimp, you know when you're preparing the shrimp when it loses that opaque color? Same thing with the fish,
that's when you can go ahead and turn it over and you want it to
be flaky whenever you're done. You can use tongs.
The only problem with tongs is whenever this fish gets tender,
sometimes it will fall apart on you.
You don't lose any of that fish because it's really
tasty. I really like way it
looks too with that breading--it gives it a nice crispy taste--and then you bite into it
and it's nice and moist. You've got that cilantro again for the color,
it's nice and brown. And then also what I've already done ahead of time is you just
basically with your tortillas, if you use a corn tortilla, you want to make sure that you brush it with a
little bit of olive oil. You put it in some foil you could place in the oven.
You do that at the very beginning before you start preparing this part, so that way when you pull them out of the oven,
they're nice and moist and pliable. If you don't put any kind of
olive oil or a little bit of butter or something like that on it just to get it to where it's nice and
tender on the tortillas, what will happen is they'll crack. And you could use
flour tortillas if you'd like too. I just like the taste of the corn tortilla with the breading and
the fish. So, as you see, this is cooking really well. It's got a nice crispy
edge to it. This makes it delicious.
You want to hear that sizzle, you know it's working on it at that point. And if you notice the
the color is getting to be to where it's white and it's not clear looking like fish is whenever you purchase it.
in the store. And please remember, whenever you buy fish frozen
not to put it on the counter top. I know it's a bad habit that a lot of us have had,
but what that does it leaves you open for foodborne bacteria and we don't want to do that.
So, as you see, it's nice and brown. It's starting to really look good. I'm going to turn
this off. Of course if you are preparing more, you would just leave it on.
Place it on here. And if you want, if I were at home
what I would do is I'd have a paper towel and I'd let it absorb the oil, but in this case
I'm just going to place it on a plate for you. So I'm going to put one on a tortilla
Oh that smells so great! I love tilipia.
It's such a good mild flavor. It doesn't have that fishy taste that a lot of people complain about.
OK. At this point,
what you what to do is go ahead and put your toppoings on while it's nice and hot. So I'm going to start off
with the spinach. Spinach is really healthy for you--it's got a lot of great vitamins, you can
put lettuce if you want.
So, I'm going to put that spinach on there. Again, it gives it some more color.
That color always makes it more appealing to the eye.
Now I'm going to place some onion
on there. Again, if you don't like onions, just leave them off.
Oh, that little crispy edge there, that just looks fantastic.
And, in this case, I'm going to place some tomato.
And as you see, right beside the plate I have some salsa. You can either buy
homemade or make your own or buy it already in a jar.
And, of course, last but not least, our cheese.
And what it will do, it will melt on those exposed pieces of fish.
And there you have it. I've plated it for you.
I wish you could be here to enjoy it with me. It's delicious. It's nutritious.
It's something really great tasting. And I hope what you do is whenever try
this is that you do experiment with it. You can modify it, you can make it hotter if you'd like
At my house we do add more cayenne pepper. Or, if you like it mild you could just leave it with
less pepper on it. So to complete this meal, what I've done, as you see, I've got whole
grain rice on here. I've added some onion on top of it. You could put some peppers on the side
for color. You've got your salsa. You could do a salad with it or bean soup.
You can be as creative as you want. This a really really inexpensive
meal to make for your family. It's like a dollar fifty per serving for four
and a dollar sixty per serving for six. So it's very inexpensive;
it looks nice and exotic; you have a great Mexican meal. So please remember
next time you have questions or you're needing recipes or some nutritional information,
contact the Texas AgriLife Extension Service because we'll be glad to help you.
Thank you and have a great day.