Fish with Pumpkin Seed Salsa

There’s a Mexican restaurant in my neighborhood that we visit a lot, because the food is terrific.  They have a salsa bar, where you can help yourself to a variety of condiments, like pickled vegetables (yes, please), or habanero salsa (too spicy, even for me), but by far the best thing on that salsa bar was the pumpkin seed arbol.  You could put that stuff on anything: stale tortilla chips, eggs, a cow pie, and it would taste great.

One day, the pumpkin seed arbol disappeared.  It wasn’t at the salsa bar.  It wasn’t on the menu. It was gone.

This was a devastating turn of events.  After a sufficient mourning period, I set out to reverse engineer the magic of the pumpkin seed arbol.  I found a recipe online that claimed to be from the restaurant, but had some suspicious items on the ingredient list, and went to work.  The toasted pumpkin seeds were easy enough, but I found that the arbol chilis packed a real punch, some I tempered them with some fruity ancho chilis.  Added sautéed onions and garlic, some vinegar and some water, and whizzed it all together.   The resulting salsa wasn’t quite the same as the original, but I still couldn’t stop dunking tortilla chips into it. 

You can serve this with chips, or put it on chicken, eggs, or, of course, burritos.  I decided to serve it on fish.  I just sprinkled some salt and pepper on a piece of flounder, dredged it in flour, and sautéed it in some olive oil, before topping it with the sauce and some pumpkin seeds for crunch.  It was no thing of beauty, but it was tasty.

PUMPKIN SEED SALSA

½ cup pumpkin seeds

1-4 arbol chilis, to taste (start with one, and work from there)

½ ancho chili (they are big)

1 Tbsp olive oil

3 cloves garlic

½ onion

3 Tbsp vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar, but you could use sherry or wine vinegar as well)

2-4 Tbsp water

salt

1 tsp sugar (if necessary) 

For the fish:

1 1/2 pounds flounder, or tilapia, or whatever is on sale

2 Tbsp flour

Salt and pepper

2 Tbsp olive oil

For the salsa

In a medium sized pan, toast the pumpkin seeds until they are just golden, then set them aside.  Coarsely chop the onion and garlic and add it to the same pan with the olive oil, and cook until the onion starts to turn golden and everything gets fragrant.  Cool slightly and add to the bowl of a food processor, along with the rest of the ingredients.  Start of with just a bit of the arbol chili, then blend everything together and adjust the heat and the seasoning to your taste.  Slowly add arbol chilis, and taste after each addition until you reach the level of heat that you want.  If the salsa gets too spicy, add a bit of sugar to even things out.  Then add water until you get the desired consistency. 

Serve with chips, as an accompaniment to tacos or burritos, or over fish or chicken.

If you are serving it over fish:

Heat olive oil in a pan large enough to hold the fish over medium heat.  Season the fish with salt and pepper.  Dredge the fish in flour, then saute in olive oil until golden on both sides, about 4 minutes per side, if the fish is a thin fish like flounder.  Spoon salsa over the fish, sprinkle with pumpkin seeds, and serve.

Serves two.