Pescado Tikin-Xik

If I had to guess, because I really haven’t tracked it yet, I would say that I eat Mexican food more often than any other type of cuisine. From casual tacos to elaborate meals, I love cooking this type of food too. I was delighted to receive a review copy of Mexico: The Cookbook by Margarita Carrillo Arronte. It’s a big, beautiful reference for dishes from every region of Mexico. It shows the diversity of the food and the blend of Spanish and indigenous cooking traditions. The saffron, capers, and olives from the Mediterranean appear along with MesoAmerican ingredients like chiles, beans, tomatoes, avocados, pumpkin, and corn. The recipes are organized by type of dish. There are street snacks like gorditas, quesadillas, and tamales with all sorts of fillings. There are fresh salads, soups for every season, and ceviches as well as main courses, sauces, breads, and sweets. I’m a little distracted by the Eggs chapter and might need to just cook my way through it. Of the many egg dishes that sound delicious, I want to try the Mestizan Eggs with Chile made with an herby tomato and ancho sauce and topped with poblano strips, sour cream, and panela. And, there are several chicken dishes I want to make as well. The Chicken in Creamy Tomato Sauce, Yucatan-Style Chicken in Orange Sauce, and Stuffed Chicken in Peanut Sauce are a few. The first dish I made from the book was the Pescado Tikin-Xik. It comes from the Yucatan Peninsula, and the fish is baked, wrapped in a banana leaf after marinating in a sauce made with achiote paste. 

I wanted to make my own achiote paste for this because some store-bought pastes include food coloring and preservatives that I’d rather avoid. It’s easy to make by using a spice grinder to mix two tablespoons annatto seeds, one teaspoon whole cumin seed, one teaspoon dried Mexican oregano, six whole allspice berries, one teaspoon sea salt, one teaspoon coriander seed, and two whole cloves. Once the spices are ground, a minced garlic clove and a tablespoon of lime juice were added to make a paste. This paste was combined with apple cider vinegar before being added to the fish. I chose black drum from the Gulf and used portioned fillets for this. The recipe in the book is written for a large fillet to be portioned after baking. So, my cooking time was shorter, and each plate received a banana leaf package. The fish fillets were seasoned, topped with the juice of an orange, and then the achiote-vinegar mixture was added. The fish was left in the refrigerator to marinate for an hour. To cook, pieces of banana leaf were placed on a baking sheet, a piece of fish was placed on each, each fillet was topped with sliced onion, sliced tomato, a bay leaf, sliced bell pepper, and pieces of sliced and seeded habanero. The banana leaves were folded around the fish, and I baked them for about eighteen minutes. With my shortened cooking time, the vegetables remained crisp-tender. I was thrilled to find pretty, ripe tomatoes from our local B5 Farms where they’re greenhouse-grown in colder weather. And, sadly, I had to buy banana leaves at the grocery store since we haven’t replaced our banana plants after they died off in a freeze a few years ago. I served the fish with cilantro rice and fried plantains. 

When the banana leaf packages were opened, the fish was aromatic and completely tender. Cooking the fish in the enclosed pocket of a leaf does wonders for the texture, and all those flavors from the achiote paste mix together wonderfully. I’ll be making achiote paste often from now on to use on fish or chicken or tofu. And, adding tostones to the meal made me realize I need to be making those more often too. This book will have me enjoying Mexican food even more frequently than I already do.

Pescado Tikin-Xik 
Recipe reprinted with publisher’s permission from Mexico: The Cookbook by Margarita Carrillo Arronte (Phaidon, $49.95, October 2014). 

Region: Yucatan Pennisula 
Preparation time: 25 minutes, plus 1 hour marinating 
Cooking time: 25 minutes 
Serves: 6 

3 1/4 lb/1.5 kg grouper, filleted 
juice of 1 orange 
1 1/2 teaspoons oregano 
2 tablespoons achiote paste 
4 tablespoons apple cider vinegar 
4 tablespoons (2 1/4 oz/60 g) lard or butter 
1 large white onion, sliced 
3 tomatoes, sliced 
2 bay leaves 
1/2–1 habanero chile, membrane and seeds removed 
2 yellow bell peppers, seeded and cut into strips 
1 banana leaf 
sea salt and pepper 
fried plantains, to serve
Refried Beans, to serve 
Red Onion Escabeche, to serve 

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F (180 degrees C/Gas Mark 4). 

Place the fillets in a shallow dish. Add the orange juice and oregano and season with salt and pepper. 

Put the achiote and vinegar in a small bowl, and stir until dissolved. Pour the mixture over the fish, cover with plastic wrap (clingfilm), and marinate in the refrigerator for 1 hour. 

Grease a large ovenproof dish with some of the lard or butter. Remove the fish from the marinade and place the fish opened out in the dish. Spread with the remaining lard, then put the onion, tomatoes, bay leaves, chile, and bell peppers on top. Wrap the fish with the banana leaf, then cover with aluminum foil and bake in the oven for 25 minutes or until the fish is cooked but not dry. Serve with plantains, refried beans, and red onion escabeche. 

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Yucatecan-Style Grilled Mahi Mahi and Rice with Roasted Poblanos, Spinach, and Goat Cheese

Following the Tuna Tostadas and wheat beer tasting, the meal continued with marinated and grilled mahi mahi with habañero-tomato salsa and a poblano and spinach rice dish. I have to brag a little about some backyard harvesting for this meal. Even though our banana plants aren’t doing so great in the drought this year, I stole one leaf for wrapping the fish. I was rather proud to put an ornamental plant to use for culinary purposes. I follow organic gardening practices throughout my yard whether the plants are edible or not, so the leaf was not only fresh but also free from any chemical sprays or fertilizers. I also have a small, sad-looking, heat-abused Mexican oregano plant, and I used a few fresh leaves from it rather than buying the dried herb.

The fish fillets were marinated, then packed into banana leaf cozies, with bay leaves from my very own tree, and secured with kitchen twine. The grilling time depends on the thickness of the fillets and the temperature of the grill. We left the packets on for about 12 minutes and turned them over for a minute or two at the end.

The mahi mahi was very pretty presented in the banana leaf, and the marinade delivered great flavor. But. Now, let me take a moment to attempt an explanation. I’m pretty sure that I like every kind of fish and shellfish out there. There really isn’t one that I dislike. Although, I’ve never actually tried eel, and there’s a good chance I’d hate it. That being said, I don’t dislike mahi mahi, but it’s just not my favorite fish. Mahi mahi can be very dry when overcooked, but this was cooked perfectly. I believe my issue with it could have something to do with the flake. Other fish flakes better, maybe? The meal overall was so fantastic, that this is really nitpicking, but I couldn’t give this dish more than four out of five stars simply because it was mahi mahi. If you feel the same, choose halibut or possibly swordfish and enjoy a five star dish.

The habañero-tomato salsa was very good. How could it not be? When I see these ingredients together in a bowl, I know it’s going to be good. The salsa and the earthy yet acidic marinade flavors made this a very good mahi mahi experience. The bright colors, the red from the achiote and tomatoes and the green of the banana leaf and lime, and the bold flavors produced such a spectacle it’s hard to believe a humble, little rice dish on the side could even be noticed.

The rice was not only noticed, it deserved a blue ribbon. It may be the most successful rice dish I’ve ever made to date. This was taken from Mexico One Plate at a Time by Rick Bayless. After the rice had cooked and then sat for 15 minutes, I turned it out into a large mixing bowl to fold in the goat cheese. This allowed the moisture at the bottom of the saucepan to evaporate. The texture of the rice was perfect, and the poblanos and spinach were delicious additions. The poblanos were roasted on the grill before the fish was cooked, and I used goat cheese that was already in my refrigerator instead of queso fresco. I expected it to be a perfectly fine rice side, but it was far more than fine.

We chose a 2006 Albariño by Bodegas Viña Nora from Galicia, Spain for the main course, and it was just right for this meal. The meal was light yet very fully flavored and kind of thrilling. The simple, white rice rested calmly next to the exuberant mahi mahi and held its own with the flavor of mild poblano chiles and the tangy bliss of goat cheese. This Latin American cooking challenge was a definite success.
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