How to Make San Diego Fish Tacos | Cook’s Country

These delightfully complex tacos are a family affair at Karina’s Cantina.

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(bright music) – Beautiful San Diego, California, for many, it’s paradise on Earth: fresh seafood, and tacos and working out and sunshine. And in this unique city where the US, Mexico, and the Pacific Ocean meet, you’ll find some of the best Mexican seafood in America. (gentle music) This is so much harder to do than what it looks like. – Yeah, right? You need to have a really good knife. – [Bryan] Great attention to detail from start to finish. That’s something that David Contreras Curiel and his family have been doing since they moved from Mexico to San Diego to follow his father’s dream of opening a restaurant. – [Bryan] I wanna try this small one. – It’s the best breakfast. We opened in 1981. My parents started it out in a little shop in Spring Valley, here in San Diego. Was a small hole in the wall kind of place. Maybe had six tables or so. – [Bryan] Today what started as a small hole in the wall is now a sprawling restaurant empire with multiple locations. I met David at one of their newest locations, Karina’s Cantina in the historic Gaslamp District, where David and his siblings continue their father’s legacy. – He would be surprised and excited for where we’ve taken his vision. – [Bryan] David’s dad, Don Arnulfo Contreras, worked in the restaurant industry in San Diego while David and the rest of the family lived in Mexico. – We lived in Tijuana, and he would cross the border every day and come and open the restaurant. And slowly the restaurant started getting busier, then he decided to bring us to San Diego. – [Bryan] So at just seven years old, David started working in the restaurant alongside his older siblings. – I was doing the counting when I was like 10 years old. So that was like my responsibility. I was doing hiring, firing (chuckling), a little bit of everything. My dad wanted me to learn every aspect of the business. That’s what we had to do to survive in this new country that my parents decided to move to, and it was to work and help the family be in a better place. – [Bryan] David and his family’s work ethic is reflected in the meticulous food that Karina serves to its guests every day. That’s why the family left nothing to chance and opened their own fish market, which allows them to control the quality of the fish from sea to plate. Today, the fish market provides fresh seafood to the family’s restaurants as well as many other restaurants in the San Diego area. – We deliver a lot of product to many of the restaurants, but also a lot of the chefs come here and they buy directly from the store. – [Bryan] But the thing I really came here for is their fish taco. – [David] They can be fried, which is like the Baja style. Our Sinaloa is more of like grilled – [Bryan] On the flat top, the fresh cod is doused in the zarandeado sauce, a combination of mayonnaise, chilies, beer, and spices. The fish is then added to a warm corn tortilla and piled high with fresh toppings. David and his team have the process down to a science, and as they continue grow, there’s one variable that will always take top priority. – [David] Family owned and operated, and that’s how we intend on keeping the growth, always having the family be a part of it. – We’ll get you right back to the video. Check out Cook’s Country’s newest book, "The Complete Cook’s Country TV Show Cookbook." – Over 16 seasons and more than 600 recipes are condensed into this cookbook, jam packed with every recipe we feature on the show, plus stories, tips, and reviews. Go on the road with "Cook’s Country" and tour the US through food. Get inspired by dishes from restaurants, regions, and chefs all over America, all in this one convenient cookbook. – To order your copy of "The Complete Cook’s Country TV Show Cookbook," scan the QR code or visit cookscountry.com to continue your "Cook’s Country" journey. (bright music) Today Brian’s gonna show us how we can make San Diego-style fish tacos at home. – Yeah, and but first, can we talk about that restaurant? – It was beautiful. – David has such an eye for artwork and design. That restaurant was gorgeous. – Yeah, and what I liked about it is you think about the taco, it feels like a humble food, but here it is displayed in this beautiful restaurant. It really elevates it as food, and I love that. – I love those tacos, and I’m happy to share that recipe with you today. It all begins with what they call the zarandeado sauce. It’s a very flavorful sauce. So we’re gonna start off in the blender here. We have 2/3 of a cup of mayonnaise, 1/3 of a cup of sour cream. We have one chipotle chili and adobo sauce. That’s gonna give us some heat and a little bit of smokiness. One arbol chili that’s been stemmed and seeded. – All right. – You could leave the seeds in if you wanted to make it a little spicier. A tablespoon of your favorite Mexican hot sauce. This is Tapatio. We got a tablespoon of beer here. So a light lager style beer. (Julia chuckling) Key ingredient. (Julia chuckling) A tablespoon of yellow mustard. Now we’re gonna add a garlic clove to it. Whenever you’re making a sauce in the blender, you don’t wanna throw whole garlic cloves in there because they tend to bounce around, so we’re just gonna give this a real quick chop. The garlic goes in there. All right, then we can go with 3/4 of a teaspoon of soy sauce, 3/4 of a teaspoon of Worcestershire sauce, 1/2 teaspoon of Mexican oregano, and a 1/4 teaspoon of black pepper, and a 1/4 teaspoon of kosher salt. All right, so we’re just gonna blend this until everything’s nicely pureed. (blender humming) So it takes about 20 seconds. And sometimes you might need to scrape down the sides of the bowl as you’re going. (blender humming intensifies) All right, we could transfer this to a little bowl here. (bowl rattling) So most of that’ll be used as the garnish for our finished tacos. But one thing that they did there at the restaurant that I never seen before, but I highly approve of, (Bryan and Julia chuckling) is that they take a little of the zarandeado sauce, and they use it while the fish is cooking. So it gets applied to the fish, and it tightens up and really sticks to the fish and gives it – Oh. – the flavor of the sauce. – That’s really interesting. – Yeah. So we’re gonna save some for that purpose. We’re gonna save six tablespoons altogether, and since we’re gonna cook the fish in two batches, we’ll save it in two, three tablespoon portions. Okay, so our sauce is all set. Now we’re gonna make pickled onions to garnish our tacos. – Mm. – So we have a cup of distilled white vinegar here. We’ll add 1/3 of a cup of granulated sugar, and then a teaspoon of kosher salt. And we’re just gonna turn this on. Just gonna let it come to a simmer. We’re really just trying to dissolve the sugar. Then we can slice up our onion. Just remove this root end from it. (knife chopping) You see that our sugar’s been dissolved in the vinegar. It’s just barely coming up to a simmer. That’s all we need. We’re just gonna pour it over top of the onions. We’re gonna let this sit for at least 30 minutes to cool down and to fully pickle, but you can just keep this in your fridge for a good week or so if you wanted to. So we’re gonna let this sit, and we’ll come back and start working on our fish. – [Julia] All right. – So today we’re gonna be using cod for our tacos, and these are four six-ounce cod filets, but you could use any fish that you like. So we’re gonna cut these filets into three equal portions, cutting it right into thirds, just like that. So these are substantial tacos. – [Julia] Mm. – So we just drop these here on our plate. All right. And then we’re just gonna season our fish all over with 1 1/2 teaspoons of kosher salt and then 1/2 teaspoon of black pepper. Now to give our fish a little light crust in the skillet, we’re gonna coat them with a little bit of flour. So I have 1/4 cup of flour here. – Mm-hmm. – Before I start dredging the fish, I’m gonna heat the skillet up so that I have a tablespoon of vegetable oil in here. I want to get it over medium-high heat until it just starts to smoke. Now we’re just gonna lightly dredge our fish in the flour. And what this does, it forms a nice light crust on the fish. – Mm-hmm. – And also helps some of that zarandeado sauce stick to the fish. – Aha. – We’ll do six pieces here. So we’ll hold off on flouring the others until before we saute ’em. So our oil’s been heating up nice and hot, just about to smoke. They cook their fish in a combination of butter and oil. – Mm-hmm. – So we’re gonna add a tablespoon of butter here. (butter sizzling) All right, so now we just drop our fish in there. All right, and we’re gonna let this fish go and cook until it’s nice and crusty on the first side. It takes about two minutes. (fish sizzling) So our fish has been cooking for about two minutes on the first side, and now we can add three tablespoons of that zarandeado sauce. So we’re just gonna kind of pour it over top. – Hmm. – Of each of the pieces. – That is cool. – Yeah. And now we’ll just give it a flip. – [Julia] Wow. – [Bryan] Sometimes it helps you to use two spatulas here. – [Julia] Oh, wow, that fish is gorgeous. Hoo hoo, I can smell the sauce. – Yeah. Okay. Now I’m just gonna shake this around a second just to kind of get that sauce working in, and we’ll let this go for another one to two minutes until the fish is just cooked through. – [Julia] Very cool. – You can see our fish is just beginning to flake. – Mm-hmm. – You wanna stop it before it just completely falls apart. So we are going to now kill the heat on the skillet, and we can just drop this fish onto a wire rack. And now we’re just going to wipe out our skillet with some paper towels, and we will repeat the process with our remaining fish. – [Julia] All right. – We are ready to build our tacos, but first we need to finish up a couple of garnishes. So avocado, classic. – Mm-hmm. – Then we could use a spoon. I kind of hug the skin. – Mm-hmm. – And just go all the way around. (knife chopping) So we’ll just give this a few slices. And then we are going to cut up a tomato. And then we’ll just slice it up, nice small dice. (knife chopping) All right, so now we’re ready to build our tacos. And if you don’t mind throwing those warm tortillas into our little taco caddies. – [Julia] You’re gonna build it in the caddy? – Yeah. I love these things. – Yeah (chuckling). Do you own them at home? – Yes. Yes, I do. (Julia chuckling) So now we could throw a piece of fish in each one of these. Some little chunk of fish. – [Julia] That fish looks delicious. – [Bryan] I bet it tastes delicious too. So to garnish our taco, we are gonna start with a combination here of 1/2 half cups of red cabbage and green cabbage. We’re just gonna toss those two together. All right, now we’ll add a little bit of our cabbage. Few tomatoes on each of the tacos. A little bit of cilantro. And then some of our zarandeado sauce. Some of our wonderful pickled onions. Look at how beautiful those are. – [Julia] Oh, gorgeous. – [Bryan] And then a little bit of avocado. – [Julia] Goodness, these tacos are beautiful, Bryan. My goodness! – Wait till you taste. – Oh! All right, enough talking. I’m ready to dive in. Mm, this is brilliant, and I see what you mean about the sauce. It really ties the whole thing together. And the fish is perfectly cooked. – [Bryan] There’s layers of freshness, layers of spice. – Mm-hmm, the freshness of the cabbage, a little bit of crunch, the tomatoes, the sauce, the onions, it all works together. – They’re just really, really solid tacos. – It’s really good. (Bryan chuckling) Bryan, I can barely stop eating long enough to tell you, (Bryan chuckling) these are the best fish tacos I have ever had, hands down. – You say that to all the cooks. – (laughing) No, thank you for showing me how to make them. – You’re very welcome. I loved it. – If you wanna make the ultimate fish tacos, start by making a flavorful zarandeado sauce. Cook the fish in a combination of a little oil, a little butter, and some of that sauce, and serve with warm tortillas and lots of fresh toppings. From "Cook’s Country" with special thanks to Karina’s Cantina in San Diego, a spectacular recipe for San Diego fish tacos. (bright music) – You’ve already finished one. – (laughing) Yeah, I couldn’t stop eating it. – I’m so far behind. – These are incredible. We hope you enjoyed this video, and tune in for more. – Hit those Like and Subscribe buttons so you never miss a single one. And if you’re ready to take your cooking to the next level, try our digital all-access membership, where you can stream every season of "Cook’s Country" anytime, anywhere, and always ad free. – Plus, you’ll gain unlimited access to all of "America’s Test Kitchen" fail-proof recipes, unbiased reviews, fresh episodes, exclusive offers, and more. – Just scan the QR code or head over to cookscountry.com to sign up a free trial. And while you’re there, sign up for our free newsletter and download our app. – And let’s make something great together.