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Flavorful sauce looks, tastes like a fiesta

Recipe: Pescado Veracruz packed with tomatoes and peppers

Sacramento Digs Gardening
BY Debbie Arrington PUBLISHED SEP 13, 2020

Mixture of tomatoes and peppers in pan — A colorful blend of tomatoes and peppers goes into Veracruz sauce.
(Photos: Debbie Arrington)

Full of flavor and bright colors, Veracruz sauce tastes and looks like a late summer fiesta.

Mixing yellow, orange and red tomatoes with green peppers makes otherwise plain-looking fish fillets jump off the plate. All red tomatoes work, too; with the green peppers, the combination echoes the flag of Mexico.

Pescado Veracruz with couscous on plate — Sautéed fish fillets are paired with couscous and
extra Veracruz sauce.

Inspired by the food of the Mexican coastal state of Veracruz, this dish is a variation of traditional Pescado Veracruz, which bakes the fish (often whole) in the sauce in the oven.

When it’s too hot to turn on the oven, substitute fish fillets sautéed on top of the stove, then smother them with the flavorful sauce. Use a firm, quick-cooking white fish such as cod, snapper or tilapia.

As for peppers, green bell peppers or mild Anaheim or Hatch peppers (or a combination of both) work well. Or add a chopped jalapeño to kick up the heat.

Serve with rice or couscous, topped with extra sauce.

Pescado Veracruz
(Fish with tomato-pepper sauce)

Makes 2 to 3 servings

Ingredients:

1 pound firm white fish fillet such as cod, snapper or tilapia

¼ cup flour

Salt and pepper

2 tablespoons butter

½ cup green pepper, chopped

1/3 cup yellow onion, chopped

1 cup tomatoes, chopped

1/4 cup white wine

Veracruz sauce is finished and ready to serve.

Instructions:

Pat dry fish fillets. Mix flour with salt and pepper to taste. Dust fillets with flour mixture.

In a large skillet, melt butter. Sauté fish fillets over medium high heat, turning once, until fish is golden and flakes apart, about 5 to 6 minutes per side or a little more depending on the thickness of the fish.

While the fish is cooking, add the chopped peppers and onions to the pan and let them sauté alongside the fish.

When the fish is ready, remove from the pan with a slotted spatula and transfer to a plate; keep warm.

Add tomatoes to the onions and peppers in the pan along with a little more butter if necessary. Over medium heat, sauté tomato mixture, stirring often, until tomatoes start to break down, about 3 minutes. Add wine, stirring to pick up any brown bits stuck to bottom of pan. Turn up heat to medium high and bring mixture to a high simmer. Stirring often, let mixture cook down until thickened, about 2 to 3 minutes.

Spoon sauce over fish and accompanying rice or couscous. Serve immediately.

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Garden Checklist for week of Nov. 3

November still offers good weather for fall planting:

* If you haven't already, it's time to clean up the remains of summer. Pull faded annuals and vegetables. Prune dead or broken branches from trees.

* Now is the best time to plant most trees and shrubs. This gives them plenty of time for root development before spring growth. They also benefit from fall and winter rains.

* Set out cool-weather annuals such as pansies and snapdragons.

* Lettuce, cabbage and broccoli also can be planted now.

* Plant garlic and onions.

* Keep planting bulbs to spread out your spring bloom. Some possible suggestions: daffodils, crocuses, hyacinths, tulips, anemones and scillas.

* This is also a good time to seed wildflowers and plant such spring bloomers as sweet pea, sweet alyssum and bachelor buttons.

* Rake and compost leaves, but dispose of any diseased plant material. For example, if peach and nectarine trees showed signs of leaf curl this year, clean up under trees and dispose of those leaves instead of composting.

* Save dry stalks and seedpods from poppies and coneflowers for fall bouquets and holiday decorating.

* For holiday blooms indoors, plant paperwhite narcissus bulbs now. Fill a shallow bowl or dish with 2 inches of rocks or pebbles. Place bulbs in the dish with the root end nestled in the rocks. Add water until it just touches the bottom of the bulbs. Place the dish in a sunny window. Add water as needed.

* Give your azaleas, gardenias and camellias a boost with chelated iron.

* For larger blooms, pinch off some camellia buds.

* Prune non-flowering trees and shrubs while dormant.

* To help prevent leaf curl, apply a copper fungicide spray to peach and nectarine trees after they lose their leaves this month. Leaf curl, which shows up in the spring, is caused by a fungus that winters as spores on the limbs and around the tree in fallen leaves. Sprays are most effective now.

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