Yesterday my son Kenton asks me, totally out of the blue, to have fish for dinner. My guess is because we've been watching a lot of Food Network and he is really LOVING trying to make things he sees. Anyway, I knew we had some frozen tilapia, so I promised him we'd have it the next night (tonight) after I could thaw it out. This was an unusual request from him because he doesn't like fish normally. I only recently got him to try (and he loved it) shrimp. In fact, the only real fish eater in the family is my husband, Kyle. I do occaisionally like halibut, a basic white fish - nothing too fishy for me!
Anyway, today my mission was to find a tilapia recipe I could both pull off and hopefully win Kenton over with. I wanted his "fish experience", particularly since he requested fish, to be a good one and one to set a precedent for him for liking fish because it's a healthy choice. I went to my old faithful Pinterest boards and searched through tilapia recipes. I chose the one I chose for several reasons. First because the picture made it look pretty good, second because the blogger said her husband wasn't a big fish eater either, and he loved it, and third because I had all the ingredients on hand and it just sounded like it might be pretty tasty!
As soon as I realized this recipe called for a marinade I started preparing it. I had about 2 hours before it would be time to make dinner and according to the recipe it only needed a minimum of 1 hour to marinade. Thank God the fish was thawed at this point!
Here's the recipe, from Pinterest. I didn't have any lime or lemons on hand, but DID have a container of Lemon Juice. I just used it instead of lime juice and simply omitted the lime zest. Also, the recipe just calls for honey. Living in Alaska, I had some special Alaskan Fireweed Honey on hand so I just used that. It's just a lighter colored honey with great flavor. I'm sure that any honey would be just fine though. After I got the marinade ready and fish in it, I just put it in the refrigerator and flipped the "bag" about every 30 minutes and marinaded it for just under 2 hours. Lastly, I don't really know how to make fish very well, but I followed her directions exactly regarding 3-4 minutes per side without disturbing it much. My fish came out perfectly done! It is a delicate fish after it cooks though so be careful with it and use a spatula to get it out of the pan so it doesn't fall apart.
Honey Lime Tilapia
Serves: 4
Ingredients
For the fish and marinade:
4 (4-5oz) tilapia fillets (thawed if frozen)
Juice and zest of 1 lime
1 Tbsp olive oil
1½ Tbsp honey
½ tsp salt
½ tsp pepper
1/4 tsp garlic powder
For dredging and cooking:
½ cup flour (I tried both white flour and whole wheat pastry flour
with good results)
¼ tsp salt
¼ tsp pepper
1-2 Tbsp olive oil
Instructions
1. Assemble
marinade by combining lime zest, lime juice, olive oil, honey, salt, pepper,
and garlic powder in a gallon-sized zip-top bag or shallow container with a
lid. Add fish and marinate in the refrigerator anywhere from 1 hour up to 24
hours*.
2. When
ready to cook, combine flour with salt and pepper on a plate. Remove each fish
fillet from the marinade and dredge lightly with the flour on both sides (just
a light, light coating).
3. Heat
1-2 Tbsp olive oil in a medium skillet over medium-high heat until shimmering.
Cook fillets 2 at a time for 3-4 minutes per side or until opaque and browned
(this works best if you don’t disturb the fish much while letting it cook).
Notes
*If you want to plan this meal in advance, you can prepare the fish and
marinade in a large freezer bag and keep it in the freezer. Move frozen fish
and marinade to the refrigerator the morning you plan to serve the fish and
allow it to thaw in the refrigerator. It will marinate while it thaws!
I started with an almost 4 lbs Beef Chuck Pot Roast (boneless) that was thawed completely. I wanted to slow cook this all day for that "fall apart tender" look and taste. So I put 1 chopped onion, about 15 baby carrots chopped into thirds, 1 package of mushroom gravy mix, 1 can mushroom slices, and 1 can of cream of mushroom with roasted garlic soup. I stirred all that to mix well. Meanwhile, I took about 2 tablespoons of olive oil and heated it in a pan until really hot. I seasoned both sides of the roast with salt, pepper, and cummin. Then I added that to the hot pan and seared the roast on all sides to seal in flavor. After that was done, I added the roast to the crock pot. I then added about 1/4 cup water to the hot pan and worked all the bits of drippings from searing the roast into the water. I poured that over the roast in the crock pot and turned it on low for about 8 hours.
