The Fish Taco Experiment

What inspired me to start this blog was making up a bunch of wacky dishes because I'm stuck at home with limited supplies, bored, and hungry. I will eat just about anything, so smashing things together in the kitchen is like second nature to me. Somewhere along the line I started posting real recipes. Nobody wants that. Let's get back to the roots and get real weird with it.

I used to work for a place that made great fish tacos. We had a nice big piece of high-quality fried fish cut into strips, a tangy coleslaw made with fresh shredded cabbage, red onion, red wine vinegar, and hand-juiced limes, topped with a spicy chipotle mayo. I wanted to recreate that at home, but the problem is the only ingredient I have that's the same as the restaurant is flour tortillas. What I do have is this:

What you see here is mayo and chipotle Tabasco for the sauce, instead of the whole chipotle chiles with adobo. Lettuce and cabbage are basically the same, right? I hope so. I've got some leftover shredded lettuce that's seen better days, a white onion, white wine vinegar, and "real" lime juice. And of course, the finest fish sticks money can buy. 

I threw the fish sticks in the air fryer (not pictured) and got to work on the rest of the toppings. A handful of lettuce, a minced slice of onion, vinegar, lime juice, salt and pepper make up the slaw. Judging by how this looks and feels, I'm not holding out a ton of hope. This is like when the lettuce at the bottom of the bag is all wet and gross.

Instead of blending whole peppers and adobo into the mayo, I'm just gonna hit a scoop of mayo with a few dashes of the chipotle Tabasco. I really like the Tabasco on its own. It has a nice smoky taste with a not overwhelming level of spice. I'm hoping this will mimic the flavor of the sauce nicely.

Stir to combine. Ended up tasting and adding a couple more shakes of Tabasco. This really isn't bad at all. It's definitely not as good as the real version, which has more depth to the flavor. This is more like a fast-food version: okay but not great. It scratches the itch and I'll keep it in mind for when I want a single serving of the sauce instead of having to make up a big batch with the peppers.

Fish sticks are done and very crunchy! I love the air fryer. I got my son to try a bite of an extra one to see if he would like fish sticks. He did not.

My favorite way to heat tortillas when I'm just doing a couple for myself is directly on the flame. It's gets nice crispy charred spots and heats very quickly. Just keep it  moving and use tongs so you don't burn yourself. The tortillas will catch on fire, as pictured at about 9 o'clock there, so watch out. If you don't have a gas stove, you're out of luck. Throw away the food you've made already and wait until a gas stove can be delivered. Don't have gas in your house? I dunno, man. Move. 

Let's build! Put some lettuce slaw down on the warmed tortillas. I squeezed out a lot of juice from this because it was very wet and soggy.

Crispy fish sticks hopefully will counter the soggy slaw.

Top with a drizzle of that mayo that I discovered is thicker than the regular version (I assume because it's lacking adobo sauce which is thinner than the mayo and would make it a bit runnier) and hard to drizzle. So top with a glob of chipotle mayo. Yum.

Take it outside for a picture in the natural light, take a deep breath, and taste. Honestly...this was really good! I fully expected this to not work but I enjoyed it a lot and scarfed these down pretty quickly. The one thing I didn't like was the texture of the slaw. The flavor was on point, nicely acidic and tangy, but texturally it was soggy and gross. I have thoughts on the slaw problem that I'll share in the notes. I call this experiment 100% successful as I'll definitely be making these again!

Notes:

• If you're going to plan to make these, I would recommend using cabbage and red onion in the slaw for sure.
• If you have to use lettuce in a pinch like I did, I would try mixing up the dressing separately and tossing the lettuce in it right before you serve. I'd probably also either use towels or a salad spinner to make sure it's dry as possible first.
• The fish sticks worked fine, but I imagine those little beer-battered fillets would be even better.
• If I had the stuff on hand, I'd make a batch of the real chipotle mayo and keep the rest in the fridge. That stuff is good on anything. The Tabasco workaround is good in a pinch.

The success of this experiment makes me inclined to try others. Stay tuned!