Seared Tilapia w/ Lemon Asparagus & Spicy Mint Gremolata

Using quality equipment is key to creating great dishes. That is to say, you don’t always need to go out and purchase the most expensive piece of cooking equipment, but more importantly a piece that can withstand time and rigorous use. When cooking your Tilapia, make sure that your non stick skillet is very hot, this will ensure that only a minimal amount of oil is needed. Your fish for once doesn’t actually have to be swimming to be ok. By using a few different fresh herbs and the hints of citrus as a topping, the fish will pack the perfect amount of heart healthy nutrients as well as a some great flavors to either start or finish off the day.

Ingredients:

2 lb thin, tender asparagus, trimmed

3 TBS coarsely chopped mint leaves

1 small garlic clove, finely chopped

½ tsp finely grated lemon zest

Juice from 1 large Lemon

Few dashes of crushed red pepper flakes

2 tilapia fillets (around1 lb), halved

Kosher Salt and freshly ground black pepper

1 TBS extra virgin olive oil, plus 4 tsp oil for drizzling

Directions:

Put a steamer basket in a large pot over 1-inch of boiling salted water.

Add the asparagus; cover and steam until it is crisp-tender, 6 to 8 minutes.

After you remove the Asparagus dash with Kosher Salt, course ground black pepper & Lemon Juice to taste.

In a small dish, stir together the mint, garlic, lemon zest and pepper flakes, this makes a great condiment called a Gremolata, which also goes perfect atop of Carne Asada and things of the grilled nature.

Brush the tilapia with 1TBS oil; season with salt and pepper to taste.

Add 2 tilapia fillets to hot pan; cook, turning once, until opaque throughout, 5 to 7 minutes total.

Transfer to plates. Repeat with remaining tilapia.

Serve the tilapia with the asparagus; garnish with Gremolata mixture.

Drizzle the asparagus and fish with olive oil, if desired.

National Almond Day - Citrus Trout Almondine (Made Easy)

The classics never die. Movies, Music and Foods included certain things just are meant to be with us forever. Today is National Almond Day. Instead of making some kind of dessert with an Almond Paste, we decided to make a play on a classic Entrée much like your starting to see popping up on a lot of restaurants menus, Trout Almondine.

Trout Almondine is typically Trout Meuniere just served with toasted Almonds. Now what the hell is Meuniere you may ask, well that just is a French word for both a sauce and method of preparation. In this case we are skipping the common step of dredging the fish in flour, to keep the dish a little lighter and healthier and instead of making a sauce and pouring it over the fish, we are cooking the fish in its own juice and a high powered version of its former self. The almonds toast themselves lovely while wrapped in the foil and the Olive Oil lends to the fishes delicate flavors perfectly.

For those of you out there looking for a new way to cook an old classic, well this may not be new technically, but it is fun and goes great with some roasted potatoes or pineapple jasmine rice.

Enjoy National Almond Day.

Click on Read More To See The Entire Recipe.

Recipe Of The Day: Tilapia w/ Hash Browns

With the year rapidly coming to a close, it is great to see that after eating more than our fair share of unhealthy foods a lot of people are getting right back to their healthy eating routines.

We got a few requests for some light and healthy meals that don’t take long to prepare and even more importantly that could stretch a few bucks during this horrible economy.

Like Nas said “It ain’t hard to tell” that we love fish in these parts, fried, baked, fresh out of the water, however you hook it up, seafood is simply amazing and needs to be included in your weekly regimen to break up the monotony.  Eating too much of anything we know can be a bad thing simply because although your body may be taking in copious amounts of certain sources of nutrients, it is being deprived of others that are greatly needed to support a healthy and active lifestyle.

This dish is easy to put together, tastes amazingly great and really healthy (the 3 things we like to look for during weekday cooking.)

Enjoy the end of the year Ladies and Gentlemen we surely are going too.