tilapia molcajete

Every time we go to the Mexican restaurant in our neighborhood, my husband orders the same thing: tilapia molcajete.  We decided to try to make it at home.  Without a molcajete.  Or a recipe for this specific dish.  Can you believe that I couldn't find a decent tilapia molcajete recipe online?  The closest we could find was this recipe for chicken molcajete.  So we adapted it from there.

My cast iron skillet was given to me by my aunt and uncle last Christmas.  It originally belonged to my grandmother (or great grandmother, we're not quite sure).  It literally melted the peppers and onions in this recipe in minutes.  Must be all of that lard and bacon grease it was conditioned with in its early life!  

Serves 4. 

Ingredients:
- 4 tilapia filets (we used frozen from Costco, thawed in a cold water bath in the sink)
- 1 head of garlic (the entire head, not just 1 clove)
- 1/2 large sweet onion (cut to your liking)
- 1 bag of frozen bell pepper blend from Trader Joe's (or fresh; we were lazy)
- 1 cup tomato sauce
- 1 cup enchilada sauce
- 3-4 tablespoons olive oil
- 1-2 tablespoons taco seasoning (I use this one from allrecipes)
- 2 teaspoons cumin
- salt to taste
- 2 limes
- 1 avocado
- tortillas (or naan, in our case, because two (2!) Trader Joe's were out of tortillas, and after that, there was no way we were going to another grocery store)

Directions (also adapted from Menu Musings)

- Preheat oven to 400 and roast the head of garlic.  We tried to chop off the top of the garlic while it was still in its paper and the garlic wouldn't cooperate so we ended up peeling all the cloves, placing them in a piece of foil, dousing them in olive oil, wrapping it up into a little foil package, and baking that for 45+ minutes.  Don't skip this step!  Roasted garlic is so good.

- Oil a cast iron skillet and sauté the onion over medium high heat.  I added a sprinkling of sugar to carmelize them a little bit.  Once they start to brown, transfer them to a large pot.

- Dump the bell peppers in the skillet, season with salt, and cook until soft over medium high heat.  Transfer to the large pot with the onions.

- Rub the tilapia filets with salt, cumin, and taco seasoning.  Add more oil to the skillet if needed.  Cook the fish in the skillet over medium heat.  Flip halfway through.  The cook time depends on the size of the filet, so you have to just watch them.  Once they are crispy on each side, transfer to the pot with the peppers and onions.

- Add the tomato sauce and enchilada sauce to the large pot.  Stir gently so you don't break up the filets (although this may happen anyways).  Cook over low heat for 10-15 minutes.  Squeeze in the juice of 1-1/2 limes.

- We garnished ours with guacamole.  Mash up 1 avocado, 1 minced garlic clove, salt to taste, and the juice of 1/2 lime.

Like I said before, we don't own a molcajete so we had to eat ours out of pasta bowls.  (Are you surprised?)  If we had obtained tortillas, we would have eaten this like fajitas.  But it was more like a stew with bread on the side.  Maybe not authentic, but good enough.