BEER-BATTERED FISH TACOS

Prep time 45 minutes

Active prep time 45 minutes

Beer battered rockfish tacos

Special equipment needed: Deep Fryer

Skills needed:  Frying

Serves 4

This fish taco is an alternative to the blackened fish taco recipe on our site.  Where that taco has a bright and fresh slaw and supports the fish with some big flavors, this taco is hearty and crispy with an emphasis on the textures.  It is a safer bet for the rookie fish eaters out there and it offers a lot of choices of flavors at the end.  Typically, I serve these buffet style and let everyone build their own.  I offer a list of tried-and-true taco toppings here, but feel free to add your own.  The purists might say that you shouldn’t mix cheese and seafood, but I say, eat whatever you like.  I’m not afraid to put some grated jack cheese or some crumbled cotija cheese on my fish taco.  Go wild, and if you can barely pick it up at the end, you are doing it right.  One note: I love deep fried fish, and that is how I demonstrate this recipe below, but you can certainly get by without a deep fryer.  Before I had a deep fryer, I would pan fry all of my fish and it is almost as good.  With a deep fryer, the batter will stick better and fish will look more like the fish n' chips you might get at a restaurant, but other than appearance, frying these in a pan will be just fine.

INGREDIENTS:

½ Gallon vegetable oil

1 lb large rockfish fillets – cut each fillet into fourths in strips

1 cup all purpose flower

1 teaspoon cumin

1 teaspoon chili powder

1 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon black pepper

1 Beer

Additional salt to taste

Flour or corn tortillas

1 can black beans

Shredded lettuce

Sour cream

Hot Sauce

Diced red onion

Diced tomatoes

Diced Jalapenos

Chopped Cilantro

Chopped avocado

Bring the temperature of the oil up to about 360 degrees in the deep fryer.  If the heat is much hotter, the batter will burn before the fish cooks through.  If it is much cooler, the fish will soak up a lot of oil.  Mix the flour with the cumin, chili powder, salt, and pepper.

Mix the seasoned flour and the beer.  It can be as thin or as thick as you like it.  The thicker the batter consistency, the thicker it will be on your fish.  If you want a light coating, make it about the consistency Hershey’s chocolate syrup.  If you want a heavy coating, make it more like pancake batter.   Thicken with more flour or thin with more beer to arrive at your desired consistency.

Fry the fish in batches and avoid crowding them in the oil.  They should take 3-4 minutes per batch.  More if the fish pieces are huge.

As soon as you pull the fish out of the oil, salt them lightly to taste and place them on a roasting rack in a warm oven.

While the fish are cooking, heat your black beans.  For flour tortillas, warm them gently before assembling your tacos.  For corn, fry them in a little bit of vegetable oil.  Put down two tortillas per person and top with lettuce and sour cream mixed with a little hot sauce.  This serves a purpose as it keeps the fish supported above the tortilla so the juices don’t make the underside of the fish soggy.  Place a fish piece on top of that and then top with black beans and any of the remaining ingredients that you like.