I tried to post in HD Conversations, but could not find it.

Maybe check with the food editor at the Huntsville paper? (If such a thing still exists!) Or find a message board for Huntsville doings? Or a visit Huntsville site editor? Or even the public library? I've found evidence online of a restaurant there, El Dorado (place of riches or city of gold, can refer to a gold strike, and is a common restaurant name). It's been gone too long for the menu to still be online. You might be looking for a simple salsa verde.

https://www.quericavida.com/recipes/fish-in-salsa-verde/98c058ab-b624-4927-8c31-51b726522f9c

https://www.elmundoeats.com/en/fish-in-salsa-verde/

https://www.food.com/recipe/pescado-en-salsa-verde-fish-fillets-in-green-sauce-120826

Here’s a link to the Convo group

https://www.houzz.com/discussions/home-decorating-conversations

I’m no help, but do you think it could have been a Mexican riff on pesto? Google brings up many Mexican ”pesto” recipe using cilantro instead of basil. Here is the one from Aaron Sanchez. https://wearecocina.com/recipes/aarons-cilantro-cotija-pesto/

I just remembered, I have recipe that starts with making cilantro pesto. I’ve posted the recipe below. I cannot vouch for it. I always use basil pesto instead. But I’d have to say, if it were between an Aaron Sanchez recipe and one that some random person posted in a blog (where my totally untested recipe comes from), I’d go with the Aaron Sanchez!

Do you know what made the sauce green? Parsley? Basil? Lime? Tarragon? Green bell peppers? Cilantro? Tomatillo?

I just googled ”talapia with green sauce recipes”

and this page came up:

I have googled for years and nothing is the same. I was hoping someone would say "Oh yeah my Mom made that!"

ETA: Newspaper? What is news on paper? The closet would be the New York Times, if they still print on paper.

https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100076426066467

El Dorado food truck in Huntsville, AL. Maybe the restaurant went mobile, maybe not? Maybe revived from other family members? Anyway, a trickle of a lead if you want to pursue.

Nope, food truck note the same. I will leave this up until tomorrow, but then I will delete.

I have googled everything for years! I can also read and I follow HD convo, I just could not post in it.

Why would you delete the thread? You never know when someone might come up with the answer you're looking for.

Sherry, we know you're a competent person. We're just trying to guess what it is. There really are newspapers published daily on actual paper, though I didn't check specifically for Huntsville. Even if they're online only, if there's an offspring of the old newspaper, they might have the files and memories the could contain your answer. You could also check with the Jaycees and other service organizations. Someone might know one of the owners or cooks. I

Do you remember more about the sauce? Was it smooth like a French sauce? Rough like a Mexican salsa? Chunky? Was it bright green? Dark? Grassy green? Did it taste of chiles (other than the mild heat)? Did it taste of tomatillos? Tomatoes? Cilantro? Parsley?

I have a collection of really old cookbooks and had high hopes of finding a recipe for you. But no, the closest I could come was "Roast Opossum".

Just was googling this subject. Dorado is a fish or mahi mahi. Recipes call for cilantro green sauce. Looks delicious.

This one looks good, was it similar to this? Google Mexican fish dishes there are some wonderful ideas that my come close to what you want.

Mexican Fish in Creamy Tomatillo Sauce • Beyond Mere Sustenance

I agree keep this thread up Sherry if you can stomach it. It is very helpful for people like me who are always looking for recipes t&t as many recipes end up on these kind of threads.

Green sauce could be so many things. A hint about whether it was a creamy sauce or a salsa type sauce or something more specific than green would be helpful. If you google Oaxacan Green Sauce, almost all that come up are a tomatillo sauce, salsa verde. Some have ingredients that could add to the heat you mentioned. But I didn't see any that were cilantro green sauce from Oaxaca, and few that were creamy.

You probably will never know the original but could start experimenting and tweak until you get something close to what you remember.

Oaxacan Green Tomatillo Sauce

If it's an Oaxacan green sauce, it might be a mole. Salsa verde tends to be a fresh sauce, mole tends to be a cooked sauce. Moles tend to be used more in cooked dishes like fish, salsas tend to be condiments that can be used in cooking.

Tomatillos instead of tomtoes. The particular flavor profile is probably going to come from the chilis you use. Pasilla de Oaxaca, Costeno Amarillo, and Chilhuacle Amarillo are going to be the most easily found dried peppers for it. Chilhuacle Amarillo is particularly noted for moles, Pasilla de Oaxaca for many Oaxacan sauces, soups, and stews. Yes, you can use fresh TexMex peppers or their dried counterparts- the flavor profile will be a bit different. Mexican oregano (not Italian), thyme, and cilantro. Coriander (the seed rather than cilantro the herb) and cumin might be in it. Maybe lemon verbena and/or Mexican pepperleaf. Pork stock is often but not always used. A masa dough can be used as a thickener- much like how flour and butter is used as a thickener.

It was a bright fresh green, not a dark dull green. A lot of Mexican ingredients are not available in North Alabama.

Did it look like mint coloring. The color description reminds me of the mint chutney except for it was hot.

The owner was Teresa Ruelas. I don't think this helps much but maybe?. Anyway it was on linked in.

It did not taste like mint. At least any mint I have ever had.

Are you near a Trader Joe's? Sounds a little like their jalapeno sauce.

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/products/pdp/jalapeno-sauce-060216

http://www.whatsgoodattraderjoes.com/2019/05/trader-joes-jalapeno-sauce.html

Trader Joe's just moved here and it is at least 35 minutes away, one way. I never go to that side of town unless I have to.

It's so worth the drive!

They could give away gold and I would not drive that far for any grocery store.

A. my husband would not eat it, B my husband would not eat it, C. He would not eat it and complain about it.

Trader Joe's isn't your typical grocery store.

https://www.traderjoes.com/home/about-us

https://www.forbes.com/sites/blakemorgan/2020/03/12/7-reasons-customers-are-more-in-love-with-trader-joes-than-ever/?sh=ce43d7b3c1fd

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/03/09/psychology-behind-how-trader-joes-became-a-favorite-grocery-store.html

https://www.pagetwentyone.com/post/why-trader-joe-s-is-so-popular

Well, sometime when you do have to drive to that part of town, check out Trader Joe's. Sounds like YOU might enjoy some of their things. Let him make his own dinner if he doesn't like something you want to try. They've got some great stuff!

There are a lot of salsa verde brands at my local grocery store. I think most are made with tomatillos. I often put my cooked salsa on fish, since at that point it is more like a relish. I just made baked tilapia last night with fennel relish on top, very yum. Not what you are looking for, but an example of how easy it is to doll up a canned product to make a sauce. In my case it was home canned special recipe fennel relish . . . My green tomato salsa is also cooked, usually from green tomatoes as a way to get rid of them. Still good. And if you want a "creamy" sauce for fish, mix in a big dab of mayo before you bake . . .

There's also chimichurri relish, which is like a cilantro based pesto but with parsley. I am always meaning to make some but my fresh parsley usually goes bad before I get to it . . .

My aunt used to bake fish in milk to take out the "fishy" taste and then you can doll that up to make a lot of different kinds of creamy sauces too . . .

I wish I could afford to eat fish more. Here in MI, the ocean fishes are not easily found or afforded for frozen. The most common fish I eat is either tilapia or what we call "panfish" which are little sunfish/perch fillets that we get from a fisheman friend. Occasionally catfish if they have nice ones which they rarely do. They are closing down the fresh fish section in my local supermarket, further limiting my options.

Oaxaca is not known for seafood. I've been there many times (I used to go there to buy rugs that I sold in San Francisco), and the only time I had fish was when I went to the beach. A friend from Mexico City was with me, and he spent part of a day helping fishermen, who gave him a fish, and we took that to a primitive restaurant where they cooked it for us. That's all I remember about it.

There are lots of Oaxacan restaurants in Los Angeles, and I do not remember seeing fish on the menu of any of them. There are direct flights from LAX to Oaxaca City, and the last time I went there, everyone I met had friends or relatives in L.A.

Oaxacan cuisine is my least favorite in Mexico, mainly because I do not like mole - it is too sweet for my taste. Much better food in Yucatan or Vera Cruz, and Vera Cruz has some of the best seafood in Mexico - it has a bit of a Cuban flavor to it, but sauces there tend to be red instead of green because of the tomatoes. The best shrimp I've had was on the beach in Vera Cruz, and they were huge. I also had a lot of seafood in Campeche.

Here is Pati Jinich's recipe for Pescado en Salsa Verde. I trust all of her recipes.

Here is a recipe for Oaxacan Green Tomatillo Sauce, which could be used on fish.

Here is a recipe for Oaxacan Mole Verde, which could also be used with fish.

maybe ?

PESCADO GRATINADO

1½ kilo de pescado dorado o róbalo en trozo

½ cebolla rebanada finita

1 chile serrano sin semilla

8 jitomates deshidratados picados

½ litro de crema lala

14 kilo queso manchego o chihuahua rallado

Aceite de olivo

Sal, pimienta, Beau monde

Cilantro picado

En aceite de olivo se acitrona la cebolla, chile serrano, jitomate deshidratado, la crema se sazona con sal, pimienta y Beau monde.

El pescado se sazona con sal, pimienta y Beau monde, se sella en la plancha con aceite de oliva.

Se pasa a un refractario se baña con la salsa se le espolvorea el cilantro y el queso, se tapan y se meten al horno de 10 a 15 minutos a gratinar antes de servir.

GRATIN FISH

1½ kilo of golden fish or sea bass in pieces

½ finely sliced onion

1 seedless serrano chile

8 chopped dehydrated tomatoes

½ liter of lala cream

14 kilo Manchego cheese or grated chihuahua

Olive oil

salt, pepper, beau monde

Chopped cilantro

Season the onion, serrano chile, dehydrated tomato in olive oil, the cream is seasoned with salt, pepper and Beau monde.

The fish is seasoned with salt, pepper and Beau monde, it is sealed on the griddle with olive oil.

Transfer to a refractory pan, bathe with the sauce, sprinkle with coriander and cheese, cover and put in the oven for 10 to 15 minutes to gratin before serving.

Sally, I can't figure out how to translate to English.

Sherry said

It was a bright fresh green, not a dark dull green. A lot of Mexican ingredients are not available in North Alabama.

~~~~~~

AL should let more migrants in! Get some variety!

I want that recipe if you find it.

We have plenty of people from Mexico and further south, but none of the grocery stores carry the ingredients. Maybe they just have friends and family haul in what they need, lol. or make a run to Texas or New Mexico.

I know Ida was making a chilie sauce using dried chilie powder, but I can't buy it. Walmart has it on their site, but it is not available here. The only powder I can buy here is "Chili" with no e. It is a mix, not pure chilies.

ETA not ida, it was Lynn in New Mexico.

Sherry, the spelling is at the whim of the label maker. Generally, chili powder is a spice mix, as you described. Pure chiles would generally be labelled Powdered Chiles along with the name(s) of the specific pepper(s), but the problem is that, like tomato powder, it has a terrible tendency to clump hard, and therefore has a very poor shelf life. I would guess that the chili powder in the sauce was the mix, which would have a lot of cumin, and probably Meixcan oregano (totally different plant from other oreganos), garlic, salt, and often other kinds of red pepper, including paprika, and perhaps other "Mexican" spices to make theirs unique.

If you want powdered chiles you should be able to buy small packets of dried chiles that you can pulverize, or whirr up in the food processor, yourself. You can also ask around. If there's a good sized Mexican population, even if the standard grocery stoes ignore them, there's probably a Mexican store where they sell the times you're looking for.

I found the post it was Lynn in NM, not Ida.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6274980/my-recipe-for-red-chile-sauce#n=10

I asked in this post about here powder and she said NOT to use the mix with the other ingredients.

https://www.gardenweb.com/discussions/6282460/lynn-s-green-chile-sauce-recipe

LynnNMOriginal Author

10 months ago

Oh no, Sherry! Whatever you do, do NOT buy the stuff the little jars in the spice section! Did you search your grocery store’s foreign foods section? I’ve seen it there when we’re traveling out of state in our RV. It comes in clear plastic (I think 1 or 2 cup) bags, either Bueno or Hatch brands.

Pillog, good reminder.

A few years ago when making a Thai recipe that called for chili powder, I wasn’t thinking and used somethink iike that McCormack (sp) powder that is a mix along the lins you described above. It was horrid. Imade a note on that recipe to use pulverized chili pepper/s.