For me, any holiday celebration, no matter what it is, revolves around what food I’m going to be serving. Big surprise there, I know. Fourth of July is a tough one because when you have a crowd like we did this year, it makes serving up some grilled steaks not very feasible for the wallet (or frankly my patience), burgers tend to be a little to bland, and hotdogs just aren’t very exciting.
For any other night I’m all for it, but this is a celebration and therefore requires something a little more fun-loving and easily editable for everyone’s individual tastes.
We settled on fish tacos because they’re obviously delicious, fun to both make and eat, and seemed like the perfect dish to embrace the melting pot character of America. Plus I was able to get some whole fresh snapper from my favorite fish market in Alhambra so that didn’t hurt either. Luckily my first time filleting a whole fish was an infinite success and deboning red snapper is super duper easy. (Unlike black cod, which tends to be the bane of my existence when it comes to deboning.)
We served up our fish tacos on some corn tortillas with fresh mango salsa, avocados, shredded cabbage, and an adobo crema sauce that we whipped up on the fly. These are some of my favorite fish tacos that I’ve eaten to date and the best part about them is that they aren’t fried or fattening! Which of course is great news for our Summer bikini bods.
Serves 8 party guests.
Ingredient List:
- 1 package corn tortillas
- 6 large red snapper fillets
- 2 avocados
- 1/2 head green cabbage
- 3-4 limes
- 1 tsp cumin
- 1/2 tsp cayenne
- 1/2 tsp paprika
- 1/2 tsp garlic powder
- 1 tbsp salt
- 1/4 tsp fresh cracked pepper
- 1/4 tsp dried oregano
Kitchen Tools: barbecue, aluminum foil, baking sheet, tongs
Prep Work:
Preheat your grill to medium high heat. Measure out spices, salt + pepper into a small bowl and stir to combine. Sprinkle on skin side of fish. Lay a sheet of aluminum foil across your baking sheet and place fish on top skin side down.
Thinly slice green cabbage. Slice limes into wedges. Pit and slice avocados. Cover avocados and refrigerate until ready to serve.
Cooking:
Place corn tortillas on your preheated grill and heat them for about 30 seconds per side. Once they get a little char, stack them in aluminum foil to keep them warm. Repeat with remaining tortillas and wrap stack tightly in foil. You can keep them warm on the top rack of the grill while your fish cooks on in your oven set to 250*F.
Use baking sheet to transport fish to barbecue, then lift only the foil and place it in the middle of the grill. Cook with the lid covered for about 15-20 minutes until fish is relatively firm and opaque throughout. When fish is finished cooking, cut into large chunks and set out your spread of toppings so that everyone can personalize their tacos. Dig in!
