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Tilapia


vengroff

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How did it compare to regular American catfish?

edited to remove bad nomenclature and add the picture and additional link.

Actually, really, very well. In restrospect, very close to the modern, non-muddy catfish. Classic mild cornmeal dredged fish-fry fish. Good eough that I might have to hit the fridge and nibble a bit before bed. Thanks for your info.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Tilapia with Lemon and Capers, as suggested by Jinmyo:

fcc39476.jpg

It came out reasonably well. The fish itself was mildly sweet, and only a tiny bit muddy, although that could have been imagined.

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Lovely plating, vengroff.

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Serving fine and fresh gratuitous comments since Oct 5 2001, 09:53 PM

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  • 3 years later...

I don't eat it much anymore, but when i do I need the crispy bits. Seems like i usually do some sort of jerk thing to it.... :blink:

Much more often if I'm in the mood for this kind of fish, the aforementioned Pangasius character is very popular frozen in Amsterdam grocery stores, and to me it's much more useful than tilapia in every way. It is sort of like American catfish, and does well in those preparations, but also Thai, Vietnamese as well unsurprisingly.

mark

Edited by markemorse (log)
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Here in Florida I find tilapia in most grocery stores at the average price of $5-6/lb. I find the flesh very white and mild tasting. Most of the times it is quite thin so it cooks very quickly. I would say it has a similar texture to a small snapper but a little wetter more like a trout. I have not detected any muddy flavors in the tilapia that I've cooked. a recent articles in the paper on the decline of grouper revealed that some local restaurants have been serving tilapia as grouper. Now these are two very different fish in thickness, taste and texture. A fish supplier in the panhandle was just convicted of mislabeling boxes of frozen tilapia as frozen grouper. Sad to see this type of misrepresentation in the seafood industry and in restaurants that should know better.

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I make my tilapia pecan encrusted with a brown butter-lemon sauce, and it gets raves. I'm sure it would be even better with a better fish, but it's a great treatment for tilapia.

Recipe:

Pulse equal parts panko breadcrumbs and pecans in a food processor until uniform size. Dredge tilapia in flour seasoned with salt and pepper. Dip in scrambled egg, coat with pecan crumb mixture. Cook in canola oil in a medium-hot pan for ~2 minutes. To make the sauce, brown a stick of butter (either in the same pan or a different one - depends if you have a lot burned bits that fell off the coating). When the butter gets nutty and fragrant, whisk in lemon juice (about 1 lemon's worth) to taste. The heat will help emulsify the sauce. Season with salt and add chopped herbs - tarragon or parsley are nice. Drizzle on top of fish.

Mmm. Now I want to make this for dinner.

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I don't find tilapia muddy at all. Since I'm a cheapskate, I usually substitute tilapia instead of sea bass for a variation of mom's steamed fish in a soy-ginger base.

gallery_20544_2100_26410.jpg

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Pescado al mojo de ajo: fish (in this case, tilapia fillets) with garlic, lime, and cilantro. This has lots of garlic, so don't make it if you have a big meeting the next morning. The sauce of pan juices, butter, lime, cilantro, and garlic (did I mention that this has lots of garlic?) is heavenly. Roasted Poblano and Anaheim rajas accompany nicely.

I'm rarely accused of subtlety in flavorings, so I like tilapia for its texture - relatively firm for a white fish.

gallery_42956_2536_74135.jpg

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Pescado al mojo de ajo: fish (in this case, tilapia fillets) with garlic, lime, and cilantro. This has lots of garlic, so don't make it if you have a big meeting the next morning. The sauce of pan juices, butter, lime, cilantro, and garlic (did I mention that this has lots of garlic?) is heavenly. Roasted Poblano and Anaheim rajas accompany nicely.

I'm rarely accused of subtlety in flavorings, so I like tilapia for its texture - relatively firm for a white fish.

gallery_42956_2536_74135.jpg

Oh yeah, yum!!!

Looks fantastic.

How do you do your rajas? in vinegar after roasting? sometimes I like to do mine with crema.

For my money you can't beat Blackened Talapia. with some red beans and rice and some collard greens. Soooo jealous wish i had a picture of mine : (

Just open the window before blackening

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Oh yeah, yum!!!

Looks fantastic.

How do you do your rajas?  in vinegar after roasting?  sometimes I like to do mine with crema.

For my money you can't beat Blackened Talapia.  with some red beans and rice and some collard greens.  Soooo jealous wish i had a picture of mine : (

Just open the window before blackening

Thank you! Blackened tilapia sounds delicious. For the rajas in the picture, I used lime juice and Mexican oregano. I do prefer rajas with crema, though. Poblanos and cream make a magical combination.

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  • 2 weeks later...
Jerk tilapia, eh?  I'm intrigued...  Do you have a recipe?

hey andrew, sorry i missed your question...i'll try to get a jerk tilapia recipe up this weekend.

also....I did buy tilapia last week because my grocery store was out of my normal panga filets, and I was planning a Vietnamese "catfish" thing....anyway, sorry to report that the storied Tilapia Muddiness Factor was more obvious than I remembered. Could've been psychological since we've been talking about it, but in any event I wished i'd waited for panga (which I did buy this week, and if I had to compare muddiness on a 10 point scale, 10 being actual mud, tilapia gets a 6, while panga gets a 2. I can't remember American catfish well enough to grade).

mark

Edited by markemorse (log)
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a few months ago, i was looking for a certain fish (dont remember what), and the store didnt have any, so the fish guy recomended tilapia as the closest replacement. The fillets were wonderfully fresh, and I made a curried cauliflower puree with the tilapia fillets on top (which were baked with EVOO, lemon, s/p, etc...) and a balsamic reduciton on top... it was DELICIOUS. Though usually I would buy another more desireable fish over tilapia, all the negative connotations that I had originally had about tilapia were gone, and I would love to try it again.

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(CONVERTED VEGGIE ALERT!) What's the deal with blackened? I know that's how I got hooked to tilapia

I had it near Wheaton - some high-end-but-chain-type restaurant.

It was awesome.

Just couldn't figure out the spice mixture and how they would have put it on!

Also, I tried to do tilapia at home and a lot stuck... (using a stainless steel pan with reasonable amount of oil) coated it with a mixture of cumin powder, garlic powder, ground red pepper, white pepper, black-pepper and salt. and cooked it. Don't know if the lack of breading was the reason that it stuck.

Pointers would help

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  • 4 years later...

Lots of recipes use flour to get a crust on it and not sure that is really needed. I put my skillet on medium low and let it come up to temp (I wait 4-5 minutes with copper skillet). Then I put butter in there and add the tilapia (lightly salted/pepper) for 2.5 minutes then flip. Once other side is complete a splash of white wine. I get a really nice light brown crust with a perfect crunch with slightly dense interior. Have put a thinner béchamel with capers, 5-6 thin asparagus and 2 smaller roasted potatoes. Cost was in the $3 range per person which was great. Learned this from a local french place called Cafe Provence. They prepare it differently and get a very light and fluffy interior which I like better....need to practice more on that one :)

All Tilapia in standard grocery stores we get here is from farms. Oriental and Mexican markets will sell the whole fish....I don't know factually if they have been farmed or wild. (yes, 5 years since a post on this)

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I love Tilapia, rate it the highest among edible Cichlids, and have never ever found it muddy. Fresh-fresh (pulled from the pond or lake, whacked with a stick, and cleaned) then fried in a little oil, it is one of the best things going.

I eat most of my Tilapia as flash-frozen fillets; here's one of my fave preparations - oven roasted in red curry, in a banana leaf with thin-slices of potato and camote.

Before cooking:

DSCN6900.jpg

After:

DSCN6910.jpg

Edited by Panaderia Canadiense (log)

Elizabeth Campbell, baking 10,000 feet up at 1° South latitude.

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