Mexican fishballs in tomato sauce
Electus

Best recipe review

Masa, masa, masa!

5/5

Masa Harina is The Boss. Makes such a difference to this recipe.

Paul R Smith
Servings:Serves 2
Calories per serving:743
Ready in:1 hour 30 minutes
Prep. time:1 hour 15 minutes
Cook time:15 minutes
Difficulty:Average difficulty
Recipe author:Chef
First published:31st October 2012

Masa harina has such a wonderful unique flavour that it's worth the effort to try and get hold of it. Most Mexican ingredient suppliers stock it.

Make this with any white fish, basa would be my choice as a flavoursome, economical and sustainable fish. Most supermarkets now stock it.


Ingredients

Printable 🖨 shopping 🛒 list & 👩‍🍳 method for this recipe

Method

  1. Add all of the fishball ingredients into a food processor with a metal blade and blitz to a rough paste.
  2. Roll into small balls and leave to chill in the fridge for an hour or so
  3. Add a few tablespoons of masa harina to a large plate, only a little is needed so don't waste it as I did!
  4. Roll the balls in masa harina to coat.
  5. Heat the butter and oil in a large frying pan and shallow fry until browned and crispy on the outside
  6. Serve with tomato sauce and the garnishes of your choice.

Serving suggestions

For two people this was served with Mild Mexican passata, a portion of pasta for one (100g dried pasta and a chopped boiled egg. A very unique and very nice recipe!

Variations

If you can get then, fresh poblano chillies, roasted and sliced would go well with this as they fairly mild.

I have added a handful of finely chopped dried shrimp to the mixture. Not authentic, but adds a nice fishy touch to fishcakes and similar recipes.

When I made this I tinkered with the tomato sauce and came up with a separate recipe (if you can call it a recipe), Mild Mexican passata. It went really well with the fishballs as it had a slightly bitter, chocolatey note.

Chef's notes

If you can't get masa harina, coarsely ground yellow cornmeal would be ok, but it would not have the same distinct flavour.

When I made this, the paste was far too wet, so I added another handful of dried breadcrumbs, a little masa, remixed it and set it in a sieve for an hour to drain a little excess liquid. The result was still quite liquid, but the end result was excellent.

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