Tilapia Recipe with Southeast Asian Flavor

Meal Monday

If you're like most of us you should definitely be incorporating more fish recipes into your family's diet. I try to cook fish once a week, and tilapia is my go-to choice. I cook salmon a lot for the omega-3's, with mixed culinary results, but the tilapia is delicious every time. It's a great choice for kids and other picky eaters because of its mildness and pleasant texture: i.e. not fishy and not slimy.

You may have already discovered the wonders of tilapia. A very mild, versatile white fish, it comes in convenient sized fillets that are almost impossible to screw up. It's also one of the more affordable types of seafood ($9.99/lb at Whole Foods).

The tilapia for sale in the United States is always farmed, but some sources of farmed tilapia are more environmentally sound than others. A couple of interesting tilapia factoids: the word tilapia actually describes several species of closely related fish, and wild tilapia is an important food source for many traditional African communities.

Today I'm going to share one of my favorite tilapia recipes with you. It's easy enough for a weeknight meal but delicious enough for company. Fish sauce ("Squid" brand is my favorite- mostly because of the name) is the semi-exotic and smelly-but-delicious ingredient key to giving the dish its Southeast Asian flavor. If your grocer doesn't have it, pick some up at your local Asian market. You need a bottle of this stuff if you want to incorporate any Thai cooking into your repertoire, which I highly recommend.

Also check out the recipes for my favorite accompaniments, coconut rice and Thai cucumber salad. I suggest slicing and salting the cukes first, before you start the other recipes. This is one of the meals we absolutely crave at our house. I hope you like it, too.

Recipe for Pan-fried Tilapia with Tomato Sauce (serves 4)

What you need:
Vegetable oil
1 small onion, minced
3-4 cloves garlic, minced or pressed
1 large tomato, chopped
1-2 tbsp. fish sauce
4 tilapia fillets
1 egg slightly beaten, 1/4 c. flour, and 2 c. panko (optional for breading)
 
What to do:
 
In a small sauce pan, sauté the onion in a little bit of oil over medium-high heat until translucent. Add the garlic and cook, stirring, 1 minute. Add the tomato and fish sauce, put the lid on and bring to a boil. Remove the lid and reduce to a simmer. Let the sauce cook while you cook the fish.
 
Rinse and pat dry the fillets. If breading (definitely better for a nice crunch, but not essential), place the flour in one bowl, the egg in another, and the panko* in a third. Dredge a fillet in flour, tap it off, coat with egg, and then cover with panko. Repeat for all 4 fillets. I do this as I cook to speed things up.
 
Heat a heavy skillet with a generous coating of oil over medium-high heat (I use my trusty cast iron). Add 2 fillets (or all 4 if your pan is gigantic!) and cook until the edges are opaque, just a couple minutes. Flip and continue cooking until the thickest part of the fish separates easily with a fork.

Serve immediately, topped with sauce.
 
*Panko are Japanese bread crumbs. Flakier and crunchier than standard italian style. All the rage these days.
 
I almost always make these 2 dishes to go with the fish.
 
Recipe for Coconut Rice
 
What you need:
1 c. rice
1/2 cup unsweetened coconut milk
Pinch of turmeric or saffron(optional)
 
What to do:
Cook the rice as directed, replacing 1/2 c. of water with the coconut milk. Mix in a pinch of turmeric or saffron for color and some salt before cooking. FYI: I always use a rice cooker for rice and other grains, but lately my rice cooker gets all ornery if I use anything other than water in it, and pops before the rice is done. And remember, rice cookers need less water than stove top rice, and vice versa.
 
Recipe for Thai Cucumber Salad
 
What you need:
3 medium cucumbers, seeded and peeled only if the skin is very waxy or tough
1-2 tsp. sugar
2 tbsp. rice vinegar
2 tbsp. white vinegar
Red pepper flakes (optional)
 
What to do:
Thinly slice cucumbers. Place in a colander over a bowl or sink and salt generously (but not too much because you won't be rinsing them). Let stand about 30 minutes. Dump the cucumbers into the middle of a clean dish towel and then wring out as much water as you possibly can. Get aggro on those cukes! (The point of all this, btw, is to make the cucumbers crunchy)
 
Dissolve sugar in a little bit of warm water and combine in a bowl with vinegars. You can use all of one kind of vinegar if you want. I like the balance between the mildness of the rice vinegar and strong acidity of the white.
 
Add the cucumbers and red pepper flakes if desired. Stir around a bunch. Let sit for as long as possible, stirring occasionally.
 
Cool instant pickles!

Photos by Emily Rodman

Comments

[Katherine]

My mouth is watering just looking at the photos and reading the text. I'm often intimidated by cooking, but this sounds doable. Plus, I am sure my family would like it! I'll let you know how it goes over...