Mango Avocado salsa for fish

While everyone in my family enjoys eating fish, I would not say I am very good at cooking it. I prefer having it at restaurants. Maybe because we can all get the kind we like. To me halibut is bland, but my husband lives and dies by halibut. I love the flavor in salmon, but he raises his upper lip at it.

So I season the fish, whatever it is, grill it, usually on the stove top grill pan and we eat it. Mah…

But, season it, grill it and add mango avocado salsa and voila! Suddenly we are dancing the cha-cha and there is confetti in the air!

This is such an easy salsa, and even though it IS called a ‘salsa’, there is no heat in it, just wonderful fresh flavors. In fact, skip the fish and just give me a bowl of this salsa!

This is just before the red onion went in. I only put in a tiny bit, less than suggested.

I will give you the salsa recipe, then a wonderful orange salad dressing recipe from the 2008 Season Best from the Pampered Chef, a great standby dressing with no sugar (I used a dab of honey) and no oil specifically, unless you count the mayo. And then I will show you my planked fish…

So,

MANGO AND AVOCADO SALSA

1 mango, peeled, pitted and diced

1 avocado, the same

1/4 cup cilantro, chopped fine

1/4 red onion, chopped fine.

1/4 cup lime juice

1 Tbsp honey

1/4 tsp salt

Just dice up the fruits and set aside. In a bowl, whisk the lime juice, honey and salt. Add everything together, including the cilantro and that-is-it! Scoop it onto your plate and love it!

One variation was to used mango and peaches. I thought I might try mango, peaches and avocados, because we all know avocados make everything better.

I was digging around the barbecue, looking for this screen I thought we had for grilling fish, so the little devils wouldn’t fall through the grate. Guess what I found? Cedar planks!? I had no idea! Brand new.

So I got them out, soaked them for, well, all day, and used them to cook the fish.

One side is wild sea bass, caught by my moms neighbor and the other is wild salmon. So wild, I had to cut it up myself, which is why it has a rather mutilated look to it, or did before we dug into it to eat it.

I actually deboned the salmon so badly that I cooked the bones on a plank as well and scraped the fish off the bones after.

I have never had planked fish. Turns out I was missing something! It came out so moist and delicious, I was once again dancing the cha-cha.

I just laid out the fish on the planks of cedar. (After soaking for at least an hour.)

I preheated the barbecue with 2 of the 3 burners. When hot, I turned off one burner so just one was going and lay the planks out on the non-burner side. I was not aiming to start a bonfire or anything. Then I close the lid and kept one eye out on them.They looked strange, getting little puddles of fish juice on top.  The Sea Bass did not turn dry and white like I expected, but moist and barely opaque. The salmon did not get as dry and dark either, but had a light, moist texture.

In other words, they were delicious!

Here is the recipe for the orange salad dressing, especially yummy with manderine oranges in the salad, and of course, avocado because…what? (“avocados make everything better”). I will give you the recipe as it is written, not as I made it, as I did not have stone ground mustard and did not add the sugar, but like I said, a small drizzle of honey.

2 oranges, squeezed of their juice.

2 Tbsp. stone ground mustard

2 tsp. sugar

1 clove garlic, pressed

1/4 tsp. salt and pepper

And that’s it. Mix well. Put in your ‘measure mix and pour’ if you have it.Enjoy over any kind of salad.

Here it is in the premix stages.

 

I managed to snap a quick pic as the plate was being pulled away. I love how the carrots come out with the julienne peeler. I prefer those thin slivers to big bone crunching chunks.

 

Another plate, another day, another dinner…more mango avocado salsa. I think with peaches this time too.