Yankee-Belle Cafe: Cilantro

Showing posts with label Cilantro. Show all posts

Saturday, February 18, 2017

Fish fillet tostadas with spicy cilantro cream sauce

Hello, everybody! Mary Jane here and I have a delicious recipe for fish tostadas. (Actually, this could be set on rice or salad, too, but I like some crunch with my veggies.)

Ingredients:

One package of breaded fish fillets, or bread and fry up your preferred fish

two cups corn

two cups black beans

four avocados

3 small tomatoes, chopped

4 tsp chopped onion

Veggie sauce:

2 tsp olive oil

3 tsp honey

4 tsp lime juice

dash of cumin

dash of cayenne pepper

Cream sauce:

2 tsp minced garlic

2 tsp fresh cilantro fresh cilantro

4 tsp lime juice

1 cup mayo

1/4 tsp cayenne

4 oz canned green chiles, mild

salt to taste

4 or 5 corn tortillas

salt to taste

Oil for frying

So, chop the avocados, tomatoes, onion and add to the corn in a medium bowl.

Mix the lime juice, cayenne pepper, honey, salt, and garlic together and add to the veggies above.

Random pictures of chopped tomatoes. *sigh* These were from a store. How I miss fresh tomatoes right now!

Prep the cilantro so it's ready to add as a garnish. I'm NOT a cilantro fan. Even the smell of it makes me queasy. But my husband loves it, so here we are... lots of cilantro. Because love.

I love fresh limes. :)

Heat about 1 1/2 cups of vegetable oil in a small pan until hot enough to crisp corn tortillas.

I also made some corn chips for those who preferred mostly veggies and just some chips for a garnish.

As soon as the tostada is out of the oil and cooled, pile on the veggies and beans. This is a bit of a deceptive photo since the reality was almost all the ingredients were separate because I have picky eaters, so people were adding what they wanted, with or without sauce.

Now, add the mayonnaise, garlic, lime juice, cayenne pepper and cilantro to a blender and blend completely. Add salt to taste.

The fish should be cooked or near cooked by now. I picked up the wrong fillets so these weren't as crunchy as I wanted, but they were still good.

Add the cilantro cream sauce and garnish with fresh cilantro.

A shot of the tortillas. If I wasn't so scared of hot oil, I'd make fresh tortilla chips every day!

Enjoy! I hope everyone is surviving the dark days of February. :) We haven't been felled by sickness yet (knock on wood) and I have a dream of escaping the winter without any terrible colds or stomach flu! Be sure to stop by my author pages of Mary Jane Hathaway or Virginia Carmichael where I share all my book news and announcements.
Until next week!

Monday, August 6, 2012

Jan’s Pico de Gallo

We’ve been talking about cilantro quite a bit the past few weeks, and it made me start craving Pico de Gallo. There are tons of recipes for Pico, but one thing all of them have in common is cilantro.

*Rabbit trail warning: Did you know that when the cilantro goes to seed in your garden, the seeds are called coriander? Another delicious spice, and it’s mentioned in the Bible: “Now the house of Israel called its name manna. It was like coriander seed, white, and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.” Exodus 16:31 – now doesn’t that sound delicious?

A couple things about the ingredients –

I use Roma tomatoes because they have more flesh and are firmer when you chop them. I always get rid of the tomato guts when I make Pico – just slice the tomato in half and hollow it out. The flesh that’s left is firm and will hold its shape in the mixture.

If you aren’t familiar with tomatillos, they’re like little green tomatoes wearing jackets. You know a tomatillo is ready to use when its papery jacket is dry and starting to split. To use the tomatillo, take it out of its jacket, wash it, and remove the stem with the point of a knife. Then just slice and chop it.

I used Anaheim chilies in this batch of Pico, because that’s what I had in the freezer. You could use any hot pepper – jalapeno, Serrano, habanero – as long as it isn’t so hot you don’t want to eat it. The Anaheims are a bit milder than the others. Oh, and make sure you wear gloves when handling hot peppers (I keep disposable latex gloves on hand), and remove ALL the seeds.

And the final hint – when I’m chopping veggies like tomatoes (firm skins, tender flesh), I always use a serrated knife – actually an old steak knife from who knows where (I had it before we were married thirty years ago). The serrated knife cuts through the outer skin without crushing the more tender flesh of the fruit or veggie.

Ingredients (makes about 4 cups of Pico de Gallo):

3 Roma tomatoes

2 Tomatillos

1 Jalapeno pepper, Anaheim Chile or other hot pepper to taste

¼ Bell pepper (green, yellow or red)

¼ onion – yellow will be stronger than white

¼ cup chopped Cilantro, or more – I tend to use more like ½ cup

1 Tablespoon lime juice

Salt to taste

Chop the tomatoes, tomatillos, peppers and onions to uniform sizes – I like anywhere between ¼” to ½”. Stir together. Isn’t it pretty? Like Christmas, or the Mexican flag!

Stir in the chopped cilantro, and then the lime juice. Taste it, and salt it if needed.

Cover the bowl and let it sit in the refrigerator for a few hours before serving to let the flavors blend.

Serve with chips, or on tacos, or as a garnish for enchiladas, or as a topping for salad …

What’s your favorite way to use Pico de Gallo?