Tacos ou « wraps » de poisson

A couple of weeks ago an American friend who lives down the road a few miles mentioned that she was going to make fish tacos for lunch the next day. That idea stuck with us and a few days ago we made our version of the same thing. We were inspired by recipes published by Rick Bayless (a Chicago chef), Ricardo Larrivée (a Montréal chef), and Jamie Oliver (who needs no introduction), among others.

We had to adapt everything to work with the ingredients we had in the kitchen and pantry. The fish was cod fillets (2 of them), and we added a few shrimp (just 8) for color and flavor. We also added corn (half a cup), since the tortillas we had were made from wheat flour, not corn meal. These were plate-size tortillas, not small taco-size ones.

The basic recipe is this. Sauté some sliced onions, garlic, and hot peppers briefly in vegetable oil. Add the fish fillets to the pan along with the shrimp and some corn kernels. Squeeze in some lime or lemon juice. Actually, we used a banana pepper we grew last summer and had pickled in vinegar, and we used some of the hot pepper vinegar instead of citrus.

Cover the pan and let the fish cook through, briefly. Then just turn off the heat and let the fish and shrimp finish steaming in the hot pan with a lid on it. Cut the shrimp up before you cook them, and then break up the fish roughly when it starts to flake and is just barely done. Those are the hot ingredients for the tacos or wraps. We had enough to make three large wraps — the equivalent of six tacos.

The other ingredients are tomatoes, avocados, lettuce, and cilantro. The three photos above show the process. Put the fish/corn mixture in the taco shell or on the tortilla, add diced tomato and avocado, add a few more drops of citrus juice or hot pepper vinegar, and then top it all with lettuce and cilantro.

If you're using tortillas, heat them up slightly in the oven or in a skillet before you fill them — wrap them in a damp kitchen towel and microwave them for 30 seconds, for example. That softens them so that you can roll them up to make un wrap (pronounced [VRAHP] in French). If you make tacos, you can use either crispy or soft tortillas. Serve the tacos or wraps with sour cream or crème fraîche and salsa or hot Louisiana or Mexican pepper sauce.