Mixmole de Pescado

The fish goes in off the heat and poaches in what is already in the pan, because two minutes of simmering shreds it.

Fish. Not vegetarian — contains fish, fish stock.

Ingredients

• 700 g firm white fish fillet, in large pieces
• 5 guajillo chillies, stalks and seeds removed
• 2 ancho chillies, stalks and seeds removed
• 400 g tomatoes
• 4 cloves garlic
• ½ onion
• 1 tablespoon masa, as on its own page, or masa harina
• 2 tablespoons oil
• a sprig of epazote
• 600 ml fish stock or water
• 2 teaspoons salt
• juice of 1 lime
• corn tortillas, as on their own page, to serve

Method

1. THE FISH GOES IN OFF THE HEAT AND POACHES IN WHAT IS ALREADY IN THE PAN. The sauce is brought to a proper simmer, the pan is taken off the stove, the fish is laid in, and the lid goes on for six or seven minutes. Six hundred millilitres of hot sauce holds far more than enough heat to cook seven hundred grams of fish, and because the liquid is falling in temperature rather than being held at a simmer, the fish firms without ever agitating. Left on the heat for the same six minutes it flakes apart and distributes itself through the sauce, and what arrives is chilli soup with fish in it rather than pieces of fish in a sauce.
2. IT IS A FIRM FISH IN LARGE PIECES AND BOTH MATTER. Four pieces, not twelve, each a good five centimetres. Small pieces have too much surface and break up even off the heat; a soft fish breaks up whatever is done to it.
3. THE PAN IS NOT TOUCHED ONCE THE FISH IS IN. No stirring, no turning, no lifting the lid to look. The pieces are spooned out at the end with a slotted spoon and the sauce ladled round them. A single stir with a spoon undoes the whole arrangement.
4. A SPOONFUL OF MASA THICKENS IT AND GOES IN AS A SLURRY. One tablespoon, slaked in cold stock first and then stirred in. It gives the sauce just enough body to coat the fish, and it is the thickener this cuisine reaches for. Dropped in dry it sets into lumps that never disperse.
5. IT IS FINISHED WITH LIME AFTER THE FISH IS COOKED, NEVER BEFORE. Acid in the poaching liquid firms the outside of the fish immediately and starts to turn it opaque the way a ceviche does, which fights the gentle poaching. Squeezed over at the end it does what it is there for.
6. The chillies toasted on a dry pan 30 SECONDS a side, soaked 20 minutes and DRAINED.
7. The tomatoes charred on a dry griddle 10 minutes, then blended UNPEELED with the chillies, garlic and onion.
8. The oil heated in a wide pan with a lid and the blended sauce poured in. Cooked 10 MINUTES until darkened.
9. The masa slaked with 4 tablespoons of COLD stock to a smooth slurry, then stirred in.
10. The rest of the stock added with the epazote and the salt, and brought to a proper SIMMER. Cooked 5 minutes.
11. Tasted and corrected for salt NOW, while there is still something to stir.
12. THE PAN TAKEN OFF THE HEAT ALTOGETHER.
13. The fish laid in in LARGE pieces, in a single layer, and pushed just below the surface with the back of a spoon.
14. The lid put on and left 6 to 7 MINUTES. NOT stirred, not turned, not looked at.
15. The fish lifted out with a slotted spoon into warm bowls, and the epazote discarded.
16. The sauce ladled around the fish, the lime squeezed over, and served with tortillas.

Our own recipe. This one was written for this site rather than taken from anywhere, so there is no source to point you at. The quantities and the order of the steps are choices, not the only way to do it.

Filed under Mexico · All recipes