Veracruz Style White Fish
Pescado a la Veracruzana
Delicious, beautiful, healthy, and easy to prepare, this white fish “a la Veracruzana” covers all the bases.
Any dish that is served ” a la Veracruzana,” which means Veracruz style, is served with a mild tomato sauce prepared with olives and capers.
This is one of the few sauces served in Mexico that doesn’t have any chile in it.
Ready to Cook?
Start by gathering all of your ingredients. For this dish, you will need white fish fillets, tomato, onion, olives, capers, garlic, thyme, bay leaf, and chicken broth.
The full ingredient list is below in the recipe. The traditional fish for this dish is red snapper. When prepared with red snapper the dish is called, “huachinango a la Veracruzana.” We used tilapia but any firm mild white fish works well.
Prepare the Sauce First
Over medium heat, fry the onion and garlic in 3 tablespoons of cooking oil for 4 minutes. You are starting to build flavor in the sauce.
Add the tomato, black pepper, and salt.
Reduce the heat to low and cook for 15 minutes until the tomatoes have given off much of their liquid.
Crush the tomatoes, onion, and garlic with a bean or potato masher.
Next, add the spices and stir.
Add the chicken broth.
Add the chopped olives and capers and stir, simmer for 15 more minutes.
Cooking the Fish
After the sauce has simmered for 15 minutes, start cooking the fish. In a separate pan over medium heat, lightly brown each side of the fish in 3 tablespoons of oil.
Once you have browned the fish on both sides, place each fish fillet in the simmering sauce.
Cook for 10 minutes until the sauce has thickened slightly and the fish is fully cooked and has taken on the flavor of the sauce. Check the flavor of the sauce and adjust the salt if necessary.
Serve and Enjoy
Serve the fish with white rice. First, put the rice on the plate then place the fish next to the rice. Gently spoon about 1 cup of the sauce over the fish and serve immediately.
Prep Time: 10 minutes minutes
Cook Time: 1 hour hour
Total Time: 1 hour hour 10 minutes minutes
Servings: 4 servings
Calories: 213kcal
Nutrition
Calories: 213kcal | Carbohydrates: 8g | Protein: 23g | Fat: 11g | Sodium: 913mg | Sugar: 3g
Pescado a la Veracruzana has always been one of my favorite Latin recipes. I'm not a fan of tilapia (too bland for me) but I do like rockfish, a very common market fish (several species) here on the Pacific Coast [years ago, it was sold/marketed as "snapper" (huachinango) but some government agency got all over them for it]. I'll sometimes skip the olives and capers, although I love them, and add mushrooms (champiñones/hongos) to the recipe for a different overall flavor. Yours is a wonderful and fairly easy recipe. Someday, the Mexican restaurants around here -- there are more than a dozen within a 10-minute drive of me -- will again add it to their menus. Thanks.