Fish Tacos with Salsa Verde

Happy St. Patrick's Day, my dear readers. While some of you might have been expecting something more along the lines of Guinness Stew today, I've chosen another way to celebrate the spirit of the day - salsa verde. This serves as the sauce for these tilapia tacos. Two tilapia fillets will give you about 6-7 tacos.

Ingredients

Fish Tacos

• 2 tilapia fillets
• 6-7 small corn tortillas
• 1/2 lemon
• Chopped tomato
• Sliced cabbage
• Crumbled queso fresco
• Salt
• Black Pepper
• Smoked Paprika
• Ground cumin
• Flour
• Olive oil

Salsa Verde

• 10 tomatillos
• 1 poblano pepper
• 4 cloves garlic, unpeeled
• 1/2 lime
• 15-20 sprigs cilantro, stems removed
• 3/8 sweet onion, roughly diced

Instructions

Fish Tacos

Slice the tilapia fillets down the center. Dust each side with salt, pepper, smoked paprika, and cumin. Squeeze a bit of lemon on them. Put flour on a plate or shallow bowl and press each fillet into the flour. Coat both sides. Heat olive oil in a non-stick pan, medium-high to high. Sear the fillets on both sides and set aside.

Next, prepare the tortillas. With a little hot olive oil in the pan, lightly fry the tortillas on both sides, to make them pliable and hot. Don't cook them long enough to make them crispy. Chop up the tomato, and slice the cabbage into strips. Assemble the tacos. Break up the fish and put a line of fish on each tortilla. Add a little tomato, cabbage, and crumbled queso fresco. Spoon a bit of the salsa verde on the tacos, and fold up.

Salsa Verde

Remove the husks from the tomatillos. Place the tomatillos, garlic, and poblano pepper on a sheet pan. Broil until the tops of the tomatillos are blackened just a bit. Flip them over, and do the same. Rotate the pepper until each side is blackened. You'll want to remove the garlic early (be careful, as one of mine exploded). The pepper should take the longest; remove the tomatillos when done.

Let everything cool off a bit. Peel the garlic. Remove the really black parts of the tomatillo skin, being careful to not lose the juice and seeds. Peel off the whole poblano skin and remove seeds and stem.

Combine the tomatillos, pepper, garlic, cilantro, and onion in a blender. Squeeze the lime in. Pulse until everything is integrated and the salsa smooths out. It should be thick, but not chunky. This salsa recipe will make an entire bowl of salsa, much more than the several spoonfuls you'll need for the tacos.