The Trouble With Tilapia

Tilapia tends to be on sale somewhat frequently at the local HEB, and when the price is good, it's hard to pass up picking up a few fillets. They're great for making fish tacos, and that's an easy, quick meal.

However, a person tires of fish tacos after a time, leaving said person with a few fillets of tilapia in the freezer in need of eating. And while tilapia is a pretty versatile fish, many of the recipes I've encountered for it just don't, well, do it for me.

Until I got the latest weekly email from Whole Paycheck, with its gaggle of recipes meant to peddle Whole Paycheck products. My track record with these recipes isn't great: The cherry-orange oatmeal bars seemed promising but were a totally tasteless dud, but the cranberry quinoa salad was tasty. That said, I was willing to give another one a shot if it helped me serve some tilapia in a new way.

Baked Southwest Tilapia1 t garlic powder
1 t chili powder
1 t salt
1/2 t black pepper
1/4 t cayenne pepper
4 6-oz. tilapia fillets
2 T extra virgin olive oil, divided
1 lime, cut into wedges

1. Preheat the oven to 450° F.
   
2. In a small bowl, combine the garlic powder, chili powder, salt, black pepper and cayenne.
   
3. Sprinkle the spice mixture evenly over both sides of the tilapia.
   
4. Coat a baking sheet with 1 tablespoon of oil.
   
5. Arrange the tilapia in a single layer on the baking sheet.
   
6. Drizzle the tilapia with the remaining tablespoon of oil.
   
7. Bake until the tilapia is golden brown and the flesh begins to flake (7 to 9 min.).
   
8. Serve with lime wedges on the side.

Yield: 4 servings

Nutritional Info
Calories: 230
Fat: 10 g
Sat fat: 2 g
Protein: 34 g
Carbs: 1 g
Cholesterol: 85 mg
Sodium: 680 mg

The Faudie's Futzings
You're wondering, Gentle Reader, how I could possibly futz with this incredibly simple recipe, right? Ahh, ye have little faith.

• I used less than a teaspoon of kosher salt instead of table salt, which I presume the recipe intends for use.
  
• I used some red pepper powder for the chili powder. I think I've mentioned before that I have the stuff out the wazoo since I bought a big bag of it at a Korean grocery some years ago to make a few Korean dishes.
  
• I only used two fillets. They're pretty big fillets and figured they'd be about equal to the overpriced, dinky fillets sold at Whole Paycheck.
  
• Instead of coating a baking pan with a tablespoon of olive oil, I lined the brownie pan I used with some aluminum foil, which I then coated with nonstick cooking spray. I did drizzle some olive oil atop the fillets, but only about half a teaspoon.

I probably should have halved the amount of spices since I was only using half the called-for fillets, but I didn't. So often I've combined spices for some recipe and wound up barely having enough to rub or sprinkle onto whatever meat it's used on. Wanting to be sure the fillets would have some flavor, I used the full amount.
Let me assure you, Gentle Reader, those two fillets had a good coat of spice on both sides.

When I popped the pair in the oven, I was a bit concerned that such high heat would badly roast the poor things. I'm really not accustomed to such high temperatures, but then I don't use my oven much for baking main courses. (Upon review of previous posts, I see that I did set Lumpy to 450 degrees for the religious red snapper I made a few months back. But that's just one time.) Of course, the tablespoon of olive oil is surely meant to protect the fish from drying out, or at least that's what I suspect. What do I know, really? I'm just The Faudie.

Eight minutes of baking was all the tilapia twosome needed to reach flakiness. They were wonderfully aromatic as they baked, although I have to admit the garlic was a tad too powerful. Garlic to me isn't a terribly Southwest/Tex-Mex flavor in my book; no, it's more Italian and Indian to me.

I'm not sure if it was the strong garlic scent or if the heat emanating from the oven did it, but I was tearing up as I served the fish. One bite later, my sinus were clearing (even though to my taste buds, the salt was a bit too strong). The boys' sinuses were also opening and clearing, so supper was accompanied by a soundtrack of sniffles and calls for more water. While the husband devoured a whole fillet, I wound up eating three-fourths of the other one because the boy-o decided after a handful of bites that his fish was too spicy for him. Ahh well. He filled up on black beans, so I'm not going to complain.

What's the lesson learned here? Whole Paycheck might have more to offer me from its recipes. I should reduce the amount of spices next time, especially the salt. And given how quick and easy this fish was to make, I will be making it again.