If you are lucky enough to find yourself in the seaside village of El Pescadero, Baja California Sur, Mexico, there are *several wonderful restaurants for you to visit. Each one of them serving the tastiest of fresh local fish and produce, with generous helpings of local charm and banter. The other day one of these, Barracuda Cantina, shared a sweet little video of the opening of a bottle of Pacifico, which gave me that happy+sad feeling that I get so much in these strange times. Happy to know these wonderful places and people, happy that I have learned to cook food from all over the world, sad because I miss my amig@s Mexican@s and my comadres and compadres at Modern Elder Academy, and sad because I won’t be going to visit them as I had planned to do in a couple of months time.

I’ve also been in conversation this week with a few medics and dieticians about the importance of a good diet in maintaining an efficient immune system, and have been reminded of how colourful a healthy diet is.

Inspired by all this, I made myself some fish tacos and washed them down with a bottle of Corona. (Yes, of COURSE I prefer Pacifico, but it’s hard to get here in London, and Corona is soooo cheap these days!!)

Steve Hatt have some very good cod fillet at the moment, which is very good for this recipe, and they have some very tasty swordfish if you’re feeling extravagant.

Ingredients:

150 g filleted white fish cut into bite-sized pieces

A squeeze of lemon juice

1/2 tablespoon smoked paprika

1 medium onion – sliced

1 red pepper seeded and sliced

1 yellow pepper, seeded and sliced

1 smoked chilli finely chopped (optional)

2 garlic cloves

2 tablespoons of tomato sauce (no, not ketchup!! If you don’t want to make the tomato sauce use passata di pomodoro or some puree slightly diluted with red wine)

Salt and pepper

(These are the ingredients for 1 person. If cooking for 2, double the amount of fish but keep the rest the same. For 4, 4x the fish and double everything else.)

What to do. …roughly speaking:

Squeeze a little lemon juice over the fish pieces in a shallow bowl. Sprinkle the smoked paprika over the fish and mix it around gently. Leave to stand for about 30 minutes

Heat some oil in a saucepan and fry the garlic and onion for a couple of minutes, then add the sliced peppers and chopped smoked chilli if you want a little more bite. Fry for another 5 minutes.  Add the fish for about 5 minutes, turning gently all the time. then add the tomato sauce or passata. Stir it together gently so not to break up the fish.  Add salt and pepper to taste.

Place a lid on the pan and keep cooking for 5 minutes until the fish is cooked through (test by tasting).

Serve in warm corn or flour tortillas with sides of guacamole, tomato salsa, mango salsa.

*Other favourite places to eat in El Pescadero are Hierbabuena (fabulously fresh garden to table food), Baja Beans for the best coffee and Carlito’s Place for Mexican/Asian fusion including some of the best sushi you will eat anywhere.