Nigerian Fish Tacos

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Happy Cinco de Mayo! What are your plans for today? For us, we will have some fish tacos 🙂

Cinco de Mayo is a day to celebrate the Mexican army’s unlikely victory over the French forces at the battle of Puebla. Every 5th of May, you can see the Mexican people grilling all kinds of meat, having a party and just a jolly good time. I remember living next door to a Mexican family, and I could always smell the savory sweetness of their cooking. Their cooking, just like our African cooking, is always packed with fresh flavors.

I have always had Spanish neighbors, so every Cinco da Mayo day, I like to make something close to or something indigenous to Mexico and for this one, we chose fish tacos. With my two ajebutters, it is easy and a lot of fun for them  to join in the fun.

Tacos aren’t really a Nigerian thing, so if you cannot source Taco shells you could easily make them by using this recipe.

Knowing that Nigerian food can be more, I decided to do a Nigerian interpretation of home made tacos. I added fried ripe plantains to the mix and I seasoned the fish with some uziza i.e. piper guineense.

This is not the first time I would be fusing Nigerian and Spanish recipes. I actually, made some bean pudding in form of cupcakes and made a taco stuffing as a topping for the pudding. It was oooh amazing.

Nigerian food can always be more.

 

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Fish Tacos
 
Prep time
Cook time
Total time
 
Author:
Serves: 8
Ingredients
for fish
  • 4 medium fish fillets. (salmon or smoked mackerel is also amazing)
  • ½tsp of black pepper
  • Uziza powder(as needed)
  • 1tbsp oil or butter
  • salt to tatse
for salsa/filling
  • 1tsp of red chili flakes
  • 2 large tomatoes(de seeded and chopped)
  • half a small onion
  • 2 small stalks green onion(optional)
  • Half a large avocado(diced)
  • 4 tbsps. each of corn kernels and beans(you can use any beans)
  • 1 lime
  • 1tsp black pepper
  • 1 handful chopped cilantro or scent leaves
  • 1 ripe plantain
  • salt to taste
  • Corn or flour tortilla shells
Instructions
  1. Wash and pat fish dry, season with salt, black pepper, uziza; then set aside to marinate for an hour
  2. peel and dice the plantain. fry and set aside(salt them after frying if you want)
  3. make the salsa with all the ingredients (except the plantains) making sure to use the lime's juice only. Season with salt and pepper.
  4. in a frying pan, heat up the tbsp. of oil or butter and sauté fish to brown on both sides. Once fish is done, break into medium sized pieces with a spatula and let it drain unto a paper towel
  5. Heat taco shells just until a little warm and pack each shell full of the fish; topping with some of the plantain and fresh salsa. Enjoy with sour cream if you want.

 

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