When we were doing the shopping at Fresh & Easy last week, I saw they had mangoes as part of their weekly 98-cent produce pack specials. We’d had a hankering for some fish, and seeing the mangoes reminded me of this Spicy Fish Tacos recipe I got from Men’s Health magazine a long while back, which has a really tasty mango-avocado salsa.

These tacos are great, can be made in about 20 minutes, and there’s some scope for savings in the recipe as well. It calls for 12 ounces of mahi-mahi for two servings, but in our experience, about a half pound of fish for two people is plenty. Also, I like to use something other than mahi-mahi because it’s not always a great choice from a sustainability perspective, but more so because you can use some other — much cheaper whitefish — with little effect on the overall taste of the tacos. I generally just see what’s on sale and go from there. This week, we found some dover sole on sale and paid $2.25 for almost 3/4 of a pound.

The recipe calls for blackening spice, so anything in this realm will work. You could even just do salt, pepper, and some cayenne or ancho chile powder. We used NoMU Smoky Peri-Peri Rub, and it worked well with the light fish. The original recipe says to grill the fish, but I usually just do it in a pan on the stove. Grilling fish filets can be a real pain — perhaps that’s why it calls for 12 ounces of mahi-mahi, to account for the bit that will stick to the grill or fall through the grate!

This mango and avocado salsa is incredible, especially when mangoes are in season like they are right now. You could make extra and put it on top of any kind of fish, or even some pork or chicken.

I also decided to make use of the kohlrabi Alex had bought at the farmers’ market. Instead of just shredding the cabbage to put on the tacos, I made a slaw by shredding the cabbage, then cutting the kohlrabi into matchsticks, then adding some chopped red chiles (I used Fresno peppers, a good mix of heat and flavor), chopped cilantro, and then finishing with salt, pepper, red wine vinegar and olive oil. This got a lot better with time, so if you can make it in advance, you’ll be better off.

We also had some black beans with the tacos, simmered in a saucepan with some garlic, onion, red and green pepper, lots of cumin and some chipotle flakes. I usually just do a roundup of the vegetables hanging around the kitchen when I make the beans, tossing in whatever’s leftover or looks good. If you want to get really fancy, toss in a can of Ro-tel diced tomatoes and green chilies. From my view, the only requirements are garlic, cumin and some sort of heat (I like the smoky flavor from the chipotle flakes), anything else is up to you.

The tacos with the mango-avocado salsa are great, so if you can find those ingredients on the cheap sometime, this can be a great cheap recipe. The Spicy Fish Taco recipe makes 2 servings (of three tacos each) and by buying the dover sole, it cost us $3.11 per serving. Add in the beans and/or the slaw, and it’s really filling as well. The slaw made 4 servings at 96 cents per serving, and the black beans cost only 47 cents per serving. All told, this cost us $4.54 per serving for a complete meal, and we had plenty of beans leftover (they’re great on toast with a fried egg on top for breakfast), along with lots of corn tortillas. Which, of course, means huevos rancheros are in our near future…

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