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Mahi Mahi Tacos
These are delicious and easy to make.
1/2 lb. Mahi Mahi fillets (per person) cut into approximately 4 long strips
(Tip: Costco has frozen wild Mahi Mahi fillets individually packaged. Each is about 1/2 lb.)
1. Heat grill and baste with olive oil spray (or similar)
2. Brush Mahi Mahi with marinade
3. When grill is hot, place Mahi Mahi on grill and turn after about 4 minutes. Brush on more marinade and cook another 5 minutes or so.
Mahi Mahi Marinade:
1/4 Cup extra virgin olive oil
1/2 teaspoon salt (Kosher salt has the best flavor)
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground pepper
Juice from 1/2 a lemon
Mix together with a wire whisk or fork
Serve fish on a heated flour tortilla brushed with marinade and top with fresh salsa.
Mahi Mahi Taco Salsa:
2 ripe tomatoes (seeds removed)
1 Cup fresh cilantro roughly chopped
1/2 Cup diced red onion
1 Tablespoon fresh lime or lemon juice
Mahi Mahi Taco History
In Mexico, the word taco is a generic term like the English word sandwich. A taco is simply a tortilla wrapped around a filling. Like a sandwich, the filling can be made with almost anything and prepared in many different ways (anything that can be rolled inside a tortilla becomes a taco). The contents of a taco can vary according to the geographical region you are eating them. The taco can be eaten as an entree or snack. They are made with soft corn or fried corn tortillas folded over.
1520 -Bernal Diaz del Castillo (1496-1584), a Spanish soldier who came with Hernán Cortés to the New World, wrote an intriguing and detailed chronicles called A True History of the Conquest of New Spain. He also chronicled the lavish feasts that were held. From the article by Sophie Avernin called Tackling the taco: A guide to the art of taco eating:
The first “taco bash” in the history of New Spain was documented by none other than Bernal Diaz del Castillo. Hernan Cortes organized this memorable banquet in Coyoacan for his captains, with pigs brought all the way from Cuba. It would, however, be a mistake to think that Cortes invented the taco, since anthropologists have discovered evidence that inhabitants of the lake region of the Valley of Mexico ate tacos filled with small fish, such as acosiles and charales. The fish were replaced by small live insects and ants in the states of Morelos and Guerrero, while locusts and snails were favorite fillings in Puebla and Oaxaca.
1914 - The first-known English-language taco recipes appeared in California cookbooks beginning in 1914. Bertha Haffner-Ginger, in her cookbook California Mexican-Spanish Cook Book said tacos were:
"made by putting chopped cooked beef and chili sauce in a tortilla made of meal and flour; folded, edges sealed together with egg; fried in deep fat, chile sauce served over it."
1929 - Pauline Wiley-Kleemann in here cookbook Ramona's Spanish-Mexican Cookery, featured six taco and tacquito recipes. These included recipes for Gorditos that came from Santa Nita or Xochimilco, Pork Tacos composed of snout, ears, jowls, kidneys, and liver, Cream Cheese Tacos, Egg Tacos, Mexican Tacos, and Tacquitos.
Taqueria or taco trucks are found throught the West and Southwest of the United States. There are two kinds of taco trucks; traveling trucks that cruise around neighborhoods and business areas, and non-cruising trucks parked permanently in lots.
Karen Hursh Graber in her article Wrap It Up: A Guide to Mexican Street Tacos says the following on the different types of tacos in Mexico:
Many foreigners come to Mexico with the idea that they can get tacos any time, but this is not generally true. Looking for tacos around midday, perhaps at the time of the gringo lunch, will not normally be a successful pursuit. Tacos are either a morning treat or a nighttime snack, pretty much disappearing between the hours of noon and six p.m. This is because the main meal in Mexico is eaten in the afternoon. Not to worry: by about six the smell of meat begins to permeate the air and the taquerías are back in business. . .
From noon until about six there are almost no tacos available; morning vendors are closed until the next day. Right around dusk, however, there is a perceptible change in the atmosphere of the street following the afternoon lull. Permanent puestos, stalls and storefront taquerías begin opening, and ambulatory taco carts roll into place, usually connecting the wires from their naked light bulbs into overhead lines. . . The most compelling signal of “taco time”, however, is the aroma. Of all the street food in Mexico, the taco is King of the Night, attracting clients with the appetizing scent of grilled, fried or steamed meat. Since the big meal of the day is eaten in the afternoon, many people opt for a late supper, or cena, and taquerías usually stay open until about midnight, and later in big cities. On weekends, taquerías near discos and clubs stay open until the wee hours of the morning, when they provide welcome sustenance to hungry partygoers.
There are many types of tacos served in Mexico and the United States. The following are the most popular ones served in the United States:
Taco al Pastor - The most popular taco in Mexico. The name means "shepherd's-style taco." Here the main ingredient is spiced pork, which is cut, in slivers, from a loaf of meat standing on a vertical spit in front of an open flame. These tacos are a Mexican adaptation of the spit-grilled meat brought by immigrants from Lebanon.
Breakfast Tacos - Breakfast tacos or burritos are available at many restaurants across the Southwest (especially New Mexico and Texas). It is a fried corn or flour tortilla that is rolled and stuffed with a mixture of seasoned meat, eggs, or cheese, and other ingredients such as onions and salsa. Much like sandwiches, these tacos can be as simple or complex as imagination allows. They are served for breakfast, lunch, or dinner, and they have gone mainstream to meet demands.
Fish Tacos - Ensenada, Mexico claims to be the birth place of the fish taco, and they are advertised at restaurants throughout the city where many claim that their taco is the original. The best place to sample them is at any of the small food stands that line the streets around the Mercado Negro, Ensenada’s incredible fish market. The fish tacos served are simply small pieces of batter-coated, fried fish in a hot corn or wheat tortilla.
Mahi Mahi Tacos are served throughout southern California and are commonly found in Mexico, specifically along the coast, as this is one of the most popular fish caught along the Mexican coastline.
People in the coastal areas of Mexico have been eating fish tacos for a long time. The history of fish tacos could seemly go back thousands of years to when indigenous North American peoples first wrapped the plentiful offshore catch into stone-ground-corn tortillas. The people of Ensenada say their port town is the fish taco's true home, dating at least from the opening of the Ensenada mercado, in 1958.
The people of San Diego, California, have been hooked on fish tacos since 1983. In fact, fish tacos are the fast-food signature dish of San Diego: they're cheap to buy and fast to make. Fish tacos were popularized in the United States by Ralph Rubio, who first tasted them while on spring break in Baja, Mexico. According to the story he tells, there was one Baja vendor he especially liked, a man named Carlos, who ran a hole-in-the-wall taco stand with a 10-foot counter and a few stools. Carlos fried fish to order and put it on a warm tortilla. Customers added their own condiments. Rubio tried to persuade Carlos to move to San Diego, but Carlos was happy where he was and would not budge. He did agree, however, to share his recipe, which Rubio scrawled on a piece of paper pulled from his wallet. Several years later, Rubio opened his own restuarnat in San Diego, called Rubio's - Home of the Fish Taco. Today, fish tacos are legendary and are sole throughout San Diego and the Southwest.
SOURCES:
California Mexican-Spanish Cook Book; Selected Mexican and Spanish Recipse, by Bertha Haffner-Ginger, Citizen Print Shop, Los Angeles, 1914.
Bernardino de Sahagún, by James Mooney, Transcribed by Joseph E. O'Connor, The Catholic Encyclopedia, Volume XIII, http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/13325a.htm, an internet web site.
Growing Corn in Mexico, Pan-American Adventure: Tepotzotlán, Mexico, by Don Lotter, August 3, 2004, http://www.newfarm.org/international/pan-am_don/aug04/tepotzetlan.shtml, an internet web site.
Hernam Cortes: From Second Letter to Charles V, 1520, From: Oliver J. Thatcher, ed., The Library of Original Sources (Milwaukee: University Research Extension Co., 1907), Vol. V: 9th to 16th Centuries, pp. 317-326, http://nahm.org/ColonialTextsCortes.html, an internet web site.
Ramona's Spanish-Mexican Cookery; The First Complete and Authentic Spanish-Mexican Cook Book in English, by Pauline Wiley-Kleemann, Editor, West Coast Publishing Co., Los Angeles, 1929.
Rubios, Fresh Mexican Grill, http://www.rubios.com/about.html, an internet web site.
Tackling the taco: A guide to the art of taco eating, by Sophie Avernin, Vuelo Mexicana, http://www.revistavuelo.com.mx/nivel2.asp?cve=116_27, an internet web site.
Tacos, Enchiladas and Refried Beans: The Invention of Mexican-American Cookery, by Andrew F. Smith, Presented at the Symposium at Oregon State University, 1999, http://food.oregonstate.edu/ref/culture/mexico_smith.html, an internet web site.
The real taste of Mexico, by Jesse Fanciulli, Greeley Tribune, November 24, 2002, http://www.greeleytrib.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20021124/WORLDSAPART/211240014, an internet web site.
Toward a Recipe File and Manuals on "How to Collect" Edible Wild Insects in North America, by Gene R. DeFollart, The Food Insects Newsletter, Volume 4, Issue 3, November 1991, http://www.food-insects.com/Vol4%20no3.htm, an internet web site.
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