Sacramento Digs Gardening: Flavorful sauce looks, tastes like a fiesta

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.

RECIPE

A recipe for preparing delicious meals from the bounty of the garden.

Keywords:

recipes tomatoes gardening Sacramento peppers farmers markets summer vegetables backyard produce

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Food in My Back Yard Series

April 15: Grow culinary herbs in containers

April 8: When to plant summer vegetables

April 1: Don't be fooled by these garden myths

March 25: Fertilizer tips: How to 'feed' your vegetables for healthy growth

March 18: Time to give vegetable seedlings some more space

March 11: Ways to win the fight against weeds

March 4: Potatoes from the garden

Feb. 25: Plant a fruit tree now -- for later

Feb. 18: How to squeeze more food into less space

Feb. 11: When to plant? Consider staggering your transplants

Feb. 4: Starting in seed starting

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Garden Checklist for week of April 20

Before possible showers at the end of the week, take advantage of all this nice sunshine – and get to work!

* Set out tomato, pepper and eggplant transplants.

* From seed, plant beans, beets, cantaloupes, carrots, corn, cucumbers, melons, pumpkins, radishes and squash.

* Plant onion sets.

* In the flower garden, plant seeds for asters, cosmos, celosia, marigolds, salvia, sunflowers and zinnias.

* Transplant petunias, zinnias, geraniums and other summer bloomers.

* Plant perennials and dahlia tubers for summer bloom.

* Plant summer bulbs, such as gladiolus and tuberous begonias.

* Transplant lettuce and cabbage seedlings.

* Smell orange blossoms? Feed citrus trees with a low dose of balanced fertilizer (such as 10-10-10) during bloom to help set fruit. Keep an eye out for ants.

* Apply slow-release fertilizer to the lawn.

* Thoroughly clean debris from the bottom of outdoor ponds or fountains.

* Trim dead flowers but not leaves from spring-flowering bulbs such as daffodils and tulips. Those leaves gather energy to create next year's flowers. Also, give the bulbs a fertilizer boost after bloom.

* Spring brings a flush of rapid growth, and that means your garden is really hungry. Give shrubs and trees a dose of a slow-release fertilizer. Or mulch with a 1-inch layer of compost.

* Start thinning fruit that's formed on apple and stone fruit trees -- you'll get larger fruit at harvest (and avoid limb breakage) if some is thinned now. The UC recommendation is to thin fruit when it is about 3/4 of an inch in diameter. Peaches and nectarines should be thinned to about 6 inches apart; smaller fruit such as plums and pluots can be about 4 inches apart. Apricots can be left at 3 inches apart. Apples and pears should be thinned to one fruit per cluster of flowers, 6 to 8 inches apart.

* Azaleas and camellias looking a little yellow? If leaves are turning yellow between the veins, give them a boost with chelated iron.

* Pinch chrysanthemums back to 12 inches for fall flowers. Cut old stems to the ground.

* Weed, weed, weed! Don’t let unwanted plants go to seed.

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