After a short trip to the Canary Islands, specifically El Hierro, I thought you'ld like to taste some of the best sauces there are for fish: Mojo. There are three types of Mojo (pronounced "moho" with the "o"s as in "molest".): Mojo Picon - spicy mojo, Mojo de Perejil - parsley mojo, and Mojo de Cilantro - coriander mojo.
Here ¡s a recipie I managed to find:
Mojo Picon:
Preparation time: 15 minutes.
Approx for 12 people
Ingredients:
2 pieces of garlic (not the whole head)
2 hot peppers
half a red pepper - optional
2 spoonfuls of vinager
2 spoonfuls of paprika
150 CL olive oil
some cumin (optional)
cooking salt - (to taste, always less than one thinks)
Preparation:
Grind the garlic with half the salt until we get a perfect mass. Then add the peppers, the cumin, the paprika in a mortar. We then little by little we add the olive oil and the vinegar, without ceasing to grind. One can add another hot pepper for more spicyness if you wish.
Remember to clean the peppers well, taking out all the seeds and the inner veins as well and cut them into small pieces before mashing.
Some people say to add the vinegar only if you are going to eat the mojo soon, otherwise it will oxidize the sauce. Otherwise, keep it in the fridge and add just before use. If the sauce is too thin, we can thicken it with breadcrumb as we mash it in the mortar.
This goes well with grilled meats as well as fish.
The process for Mojo de Cilantro (Coriander Mojo) is pretty much the same except that you use a bunch of fresh Coriander and instead of the hot peppers use two green peppers. (No paprika and no red pepper is used).
This is used for fried and grilled fish.
For the Parsley Mojo just use parsley instead of the peppers and the paprika.
Remember to vary the amount of ingredients. Some advocate using onions instead of garlic, and others use more garlic than I've indicated. It's good to experiment. It's one of those recipies that differs from family to family.
Here's a picture of a dish we had with caballa (sorry, don't know the name in English, it's a pelagic), boiled in Mojo Picon, and accompanied with sweet potatoe. Needless to say it was absolutely delicious!
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