Anyway...I went the route of fish tonight. It's not something I normally do...I'm always afraid of fish tastying 'fishy.' When I was a kid, I had so much fresh water fish as a kid, and without a doubt, there was always a serving a fish that tasted awful. Well, I'm working out my issues and moving on.
Tilapia with Lemon Caper Sauce
Serves 2
3/4 cup chicken broth
1/4 cup fresh squeezed lemon juice (1 lemon)
1 1/2 tsp drained capers, lightly chopped
2 tsp butter
2 tilapia filets (mine were small, I did three and split the last one)
Salt/Pepper
1/4 cup flour
2 tsp butter
Combine first three ingredients.
Melt butter in a large nonstick skillet over low heat.
While the butter melts, sprinkle the fish fillets with salt and pepper. Place the flour in a shallow dish. Dredge fillets in flour; shake off excess flour.
Increase heat to medium-high; heat 2 minutes until butter turns golden brown. Add the fillets to the pan; saute 2-3 minutes per side or until the fish is flaky. Remove the fillets from the pan. Add broth/lemon juice and capers to the pan, scraping up any brown bits in the pan. Bring to a boil; cook until reduced to 1/2 cup (about 3 minutes). Remove from heat. Stir in two teaspoons of butter with a whisk. serve sauce over fillets. Garnish with lemon wedges and chopped parsley, if desired.
I misread the recipe and thought it said two tablespoons of butter. So it a pan fried tilapia vs. sauteed. Oh well, mistakes happen and when you don't know you made the mistake...all is good.
Here's the sauce. I had a shallot in the cupboard that was getting lonely, so I finely diced the shallot and tossed it in the pan before the broth/juice mixture, until they started to soften and turn translucent. You'll also note in the recipe that after the sauce reduces, to add 2 tsp of butter to enrich the sauce. Well, I didn't do that either, cuz i'm stooopid. Again, didn't know this was a mistake until after we finished dinner, so all was good. Maybe if you only saute the fish in 2 tsp of butter, you might want to add the 2 tsp in this step.
Here we go. I served the fish on my new plates that we picked up at the outlets this weekend! I served with some sauted potatoes that were seasoned with salt, pepper and herbs de 'provence. Yum!Dinner was tasty and light. I'd certainly make this again. And easy!! There were just a few minutes of prep (talking tilapia here, not potatoes) and less than 10 minutes of cooking and sauce making!
The recipe as I found it in my files actually called for brine-packed green peppercorns instead of capers. I'm sure they are good, but I had capers! The recipe also recommended dredging the filets in whole wheat flour for a nutty flavor in the fish. I'm sure it would be good and I could have tried it with the WW flour in the cupboard, but that would have taken my lazy rear another minute to dig it out. Oh well!
5 comments:
This sounds perfect for a light summer dinner.
YUM - so good! I could have eaten more!
This actually sounds like something I could make! And similar to the filet of sole I had for dinner last night in NYC. Two questions:
1. How do you buy capers? Do they come fresh, or in a jar? Where in the aisles???
2. Is the flour necessary, or could the fish filets be sauteed without the flour? It doesn't sound like it's bad for you at all, I just don't usually like any breading.
thoughts?
If I remember correctly, the capers are in the condiment aisle near the pickles/olives. They are small little jars and their are a few sizes of capers...go for the small ones, roughly the size of a pea.
as for the flour, I'm sure you can skip it and be fine. As I don't make tilapia very often, I'm not sure if it will hold up to a quick saute without this bit of flour to protect the fish from falling apart. Even though the recipe calls for 1/4 cup of flour, when all is said and done, probably less than 1 TB are actually used.
New plates. New bowls. That just makes a good dinner that much more enjoyable. Also -- with the fish -- who cares about a little extra butter!
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