mahi-mahi
Today when I went to prepare the meal I found some unexpected ingredients for the marinade in the back of the refrigerator. A while back Normita had bought a bottle of Torito and we only had a few little sips and it has sat unused in there. Torito is an alcoholic drink typical of Veracruz, a state in the east of the country on the Golf of Mexico coast. It is a cream of peanuts, and I quickly thought of doing something like a cross between Thai and Mexican food. Torito is very sweet so I needed to cut that to make it palatable with the fish. I also found some tamarind pulp and some fresh limes so I made a mixture of Torito with tamarind pulp and lime juice. It lacked salt and chile to balance the flavor so I added some soy sauce and some chile paste until I got a satisfactory mixture. I then put my 2 pieces of fish filet in the marinade and refrigerated for 15-20 minutes while I finished preparing the rest of the meal.
Two nice pieces of dorado filet (mahi-mahi)
The main ingredients of the marinade
I had found some large potatoes while searching for ingredients for the marinade and decided to grill them with the fish. I sliced them, and then sprinkled some salt, pepper, oregano, and olive oil on them. I like to grill them on high heat until slightly burned. They get a great flavor like that.
The potaoes ready to be grilled
We had some frozen vegetables as a second side dish, simply heated in the microwave with a bit of butter, salt, pepper, and herbes de provence on top. I grilled the fish directly on the barbecue with the potatoes and the meal turned out surprisingly tasty. I served a little bit of the reserved marinade on the fish as a light tangy sauce.
The plated dorado
Lucito
The heat has yet to letup here in Mexico City and the entire region is plagued by high heat and high levels of pollution. We had planned to go out today, but neither Normita nor I have the energy to face up with the heat down the hill. I guess that it will be for another day. I thawed a nice piece of dorado or mahi-mahi today. It is sitting in the refrigerator waiting for me to decide what to do with it. Since the is minimal wind today I might do something on the barbecue. I will definitely marinate it first, in what I still have no idea as I have looked into what we have left yet. I think we have some nice large potatoes, so I guess I will grill some nice slices of potato first, and since I do not think we have anything fresh in the refrigerator I will have to used some frozen vegetables as a side dish.
I will decide the details of the meal in a short while, but first I have to go take a shower. Bacchus just passed by my office’s window and from the long smell he took and the excited way he looked at me I guess that I smell like one of the pack and he wants me to go bark at the squirrels in the trees with him. I think I will pass on the occasion and go wash off the strange smell, so that I can be taken for a human again…
Later I’ll post the details on how I prepared the dorado.
Lucito
Today’s day is only marginally going better than yesterday’s, but I prepared a decent meal anyways. I was not sure what the fish I thawed yesterday was, as I have the bad habit of putting stuff in zipper bags and then freezing them and trying to rely on my memory to know what it is. It does not work and I really need to make an effort to start systematically labeling things with content and freeze date as opposed to only occasionally do it.
It turned out to be one of the last pieces of local “dorado” (mahi-mahi) from the over 1 meter fish we bought some months ago. At the same time we also bought a few large “huachinango” (red snapper). We are now down to our last few packs, so we need to plan another trip to the central fish market. The two pieces in the pack were from the tail tip of the filet and not well cut to cook as a whole.
Yesterday I had though of baking them in a tomato sauce, but today I was pressed for time and I wanted something quicker to prepare and something that gives a satisfying crunch when eating, as everybody knows that crunchy food is fun food. I decided to cut the pieces in small chunks, then bread them quickly with some savory breading.
I prepared a quick bound breading with first some flour mixed with garlic salt, herbes de Provence, citric chile powder and white pepper to lightly flour the pieces. I them passed them through a wash with eggs mixed with a bit of sesame oil, salsa “Maggi”, and heavy cream. Then I completed the bound breading with some hand-crushed Corn Flakes.
Dorado breaded in Corn Flakes
I pan-fried the fish in a few tablespoons of soy oil and it yielded incredibly crunchy pieces of fish with a moist juicy interior. I served it with the leftover sweet potato purée from 2 days ago. It turned out to be an very quick and easy meal to prepare that was very satisfying and very tasty.
The plated Dorado ready to serve
Lucito