Fish Taco Mayo

[uncfnp]

Write it down, I promise it's perfect.

Done one better. Copied and pasted to my recipe page. Next trip in WPB in September with hopes for fresh fish then.

 

[CuzzA]

Done one better. Copied and pasted to my recipe page. Next trip in WPB in September with hopes for fresh fish then.

Ok.. As long as I get some credit in your page with a good title... Like "CuzzA's Amazing Dueling Lion and Hog Bake."

I've been playing around with it too. Trying different things like white wine and Tarragon Vinegar. Lots of croutons are the key though.

 

[Wookie]

Agree about wanting less people liking fish. After we discovered lionfish ceviche we can't find enough for a dish. Will have to try your recipe if we ever get the chance.

Hard to find lionfish in the FLL/West Palm area unless you go deep. That's because guys like James like to eat them so they go on thursday afternoons so there are none for you on the weekend. Hit any trimix or deep deep air wreck and you should be good to go. Of course you have to be good. Have a plan on where to put them. Or, dive the keys where not everybody goes, like the outer reef off of Marathon. That's a charter, not a cattle boat. Or, any of the reefs west of Key West by Satan Shoal, Marquesas rock, etc. Don't go too far west, the lionfish interns in the Dry Tortugas are starving to death.

 

[CuzzA]

If you don't have any luck, you can always buy some at Whole Foods. Not sure if they're still going for $9 a pound (which is a great price, IMO). But it would definitely be worth while to grab a $10 pole spear and a Lionfish hotel that can double as a lobster hotel.

The lionfish: King of the ocean no more?

 

[scubadada]

What is this "traditional" white sauce of which you speak? I learned to eat fish tacos in Lajolla, at the Taco Stand, arguably where fish tacos were invented. I never saw a white sauce, only a pink one.

I'm with Wookie. I was an undergraduate at UCSD from 1972-76 and ate fish tacos in La Jolla at every opportunity. The sauce had a faint yellow-pink tinge, probably due to the minority component of cumin and chile powder and/or salsa. The mayonaise/sour cream base was the same as were the other components.

 

[uncfnp]

Hard to find lionfish in the FLL/West Palm area unless you go deep. That's because guys like James like to eat them so they go on thursday afternoons so there are none for you on the weekend. Hit any trimix or deep deep air wreck and you should be good to go. Of course you have to be good. Have a plan on where to put them. Or, dive the keys where not everybody goes, like the outer reef off of Marathon. That's a charter, not a cattle boat. Or, any of the reefs west of Key West by Satan Shoal, Marquesas rock, etc. Don't go too far west, the lionfish interns in the Dry Tortugas are starving to death.

When we first started diving WPB we would get or at least see several lionfish, and niced sized ones at that, almost every dive. Now its the rare lionfish we see. Almost to the point that we have quit carrying the gear on most dives. Even when the captain dives during the surface interval at some of the remote spots his catches have been sparse.

Unfortunately those trimix deeper dives are not an option at present.

 

[uncfnp]

If you don't have any luck, you can always buy some at Whole Foods. Not sure if they're still going for $9 a pound (which is a great price, IMO). But it would definitely be worth while to grab a $10 pole spear and a Lionfish hotel that can double as a lobster hotel.

The lionfish: King of the ocean no more?

Just not the same as your own catch...

 

[Wookie]

When we first started diving WPB we would get or at least see several lionfish, and niced sized ones at that, almost every dive. Now its the rare lionfish we see. Almost to the point that we have quit carrying the gear on most dives. Even when the captain dives during the surface interval at some of the remote spots his catches have been sparse.

Unfortunately those trimix deeper dives are not an option at present.

Do you not dive the NC wrecks? I'd think they would be loaded, especially if you can dive some or the not so popular ones.

The Bahamas is something to think about. I know you can't drive there, but I met someone coming back in the FLL airport who flew SouthWest and got a $69 one way. Bahamas is loaded with the little buggers.

 

[Lorenzoid]

Hard to find lionfish in the FLL/West Palm area unless you go deep. That's because guys like James like to eat them so they go on thursday afternoons so there are none for you on the weekend. Hit any trimix or deep deep air wreck and you should be good to go. Of course you have to be good. Have a plan on where to put them. Or, dive the keys where not everybody goes, like the outer reef off of Marathon. That's a charter, not a cattle boat. Or, any of the reefs west of Key West by Satan Shoal, Marquesas rock, etc. Don't go too far west, the lionfish interns in the Dry Tortugas are starving to death.

If to find me some lionfish I have to spend 10 grand learning and diving trimix, the lionfish might even be less expensive at Whole Foods.

I'm with Wookie. I was an undergraduate at UCSD from 1972-76 and ate fish tacos in La Jolla at every opportunity. The sauce had a faint yellow-pink tinge, probably due to the minority component of cumin and chile powder and/or salsa. The mayonaise/sour cream base was the same as were the other components.

Oh, sure, but what about the ones you ate on Spring Break from the vendors in San Felipe or Rosarito Beach?

Yeah, I suspect from the very beginning of fish tacos in San Diego, cooks could not resist the temptation to add something colorful to the white sauce. Although Rubio's is sort of the prototypical fish taco in the minds of most San Diegans, everyone knows he wasn't the first to serve them. I do like that even now with 200 restaurants throughout the west, Rubio's basic fish taco remains relatively true to what he discovered on his Spring Break adventures. I've got his recipe on a yellowed piece of paper clipped from the San Diego Union-Tribune years ago if anyone wants it. I just looked at it, and his white sauce is nothing more than 50-50 mayo and yogurt.

The great thing is that almost any reasonably firm-fleshed fish will do. (However, tilapia, aka tofu-with-fins, is an abomination. A fish for people who don't really like fish.) I wish I could get my hands on lionfish, but I haven't yet gotten into underwater hunting, and it sounds like the easy pickings in FL are gone. Our current fish of choice for fish tacos is amberjack.

 

[Wookie]

I wish I could get my hands on lionfish, but I haven't yet gotten into underwater hunting, and it sounds like the easy pickings in FL are gone. Our current fish of choice for fish tacos is amberjack.

I think that the places where the tourist pressure is high the lionfish are gone. You won't find them (easily) on the shallow wrecks of Broward/Dade/St. Lucie/Monroe county because it's where everyone goes, but the 65 foot ledges of Capt Canaveral and Jacksonville and Panama City and Tampa are loaded with them. It has to do with diver pressure. Those ledges in Dade/Broward/St. Lucie don't hold meter black grouper either, but there are plenty in Florida to be had.