Mojo de Ajo Garlic Sauce

4.94 from 15 votes

This is a very simple pan sauce for fish, seafood or other white meats such as chicken, quail, rabbit or turkey. I like to serve this with simple rice, or crusty bread. Potatoes would be good, too.

Prep Time20

Cook Time15

Total Time35

Course: lunch, Main Course

Cuisine: Caribbean, Mediterranean, Spanish

Servings: servings

Author: Hank Shaw

Ingredients

FISH

1 to 2 pounds skinless fish fillets
Salt and pepper
1 cup flour, for dusting
Clarified butter or oil, for frying

MOJO DE AJO

1/2 cup butter
6 to 8 cloves garlic, sliced thin
Crushed, dried, hot chiles, to taste (I use chiltepins)
3 tablespoons minced parsley
2 limes, zested and juiced
Salt

Instructions

Salt and pepper your fish fillets. Let the salt do its thing for 10 minutes or so while you chop parsley and slice garlic, etc. Add enough clarified butter or cooking oil of your choice to a pan and start heating it on medium. Set a cooling rack over a baking sheet in your oven and turn the oven to "warm."
Once the fillets are a little damp from the salt extracting moisture, dust them in flour, pressing it in well. Jack the heat up to high to get the oil or clarified butter between 325°F and 350°F, When it's hot, fry the fish until it's golden brown on both sides, about 2 to 4 minutes per side depending on how hot the oil is and how thick your fish is.
Move the finished fillets to the cooling rack in the oven while you finish the rest.
When they're all done, pour off the oil and wipe the pan out. Add the butter, and melt it over medium heat. Add the sliced garlic and the crushed, dried chiles and cook until the garlic is tan, but not brown.
This is the only tricky part: Turn the heat to low and start swirling the pan so the hot butter begins to swirl. Pour in the lime juice little by little until it emulsifies with the butter and garlic. Once it does, add the parsley, lime zest and a little salt. You can add black pepper, too, if you want.
Return the fish to the pan and bathe them in the sauce for a moment or two. Move them to plates, and divvy up the remaining sauce on each piece of fish. Serve with bread, rice or potatoes.

Notes

Any white meat protein you can cook quickly, like chicken or pheasant breasts, quail, thin pork loin medallions, any fish fillet, shrimp, scallops, lobster tails, etc., will work here.

Variations

You can mix and match the citrus. Use Seville orange juice, or lemons, or yuzu or whatever. Or use vinegar, or even verjus.
Ditto for the herb. Parsley, cilantro, culantro for a Cuban touch, pipicha, huacatay, summer savory, lovage, celery leaves, you name it.
If you're not a butter fan, use a really good oil of your choice in its place, like a good olive oil, or an unrefined nut oil.

Nutrition