Keep-It-Tight (Ugh!) Tilapia

(Original post August 24, 2012 @ mtable.wordpress.com.)

On a whim, I bought a couple of tilapia fillets at the commissary a couple of weeks ago, and they've been sitting in my freezer ever since. I love fish, but I don't buy it terribly often. This is partly because it's more expensive than other meats (yeah, I mean chicken), but mostly because I'm not very good at cooking it. I never seem to get it quite right. I fail at seasoning, and I'm never sure how to tell when it's done cooking. But since I bought the damn fish, I decided to find a recipe and cook it. I didn't have any tilapia recipes pinned, so I did a search for "tilapia." This was the first recipe that came up. It looked pretty and seemed simple, so we cook!

The Pin: Keep-It-Tight Tilapia by Eat Clean Diet

Difficulty: 3 (1 = Super Easy, 10 = Too Hard)

Let me start off by saying I seriously hate the name of this recipe. "Keep-it-tight"? Really? Had I bothered to look at the name at the time of pinning, I might have skipped this one all together, but the text under the picture on Pinterest just says "tilapia." I was so enamored of the picture on Eat Clean Diet's site that I didn't catch the name until after I'd cooked and eaten it.

FISH!

There are many spices in this recipe but (AMG!) no salt. I ought to have known something was amiss by the website's name, Eat Clean Diet, but I didn't. (I need to learn to pay attention to stuff, don't I? Shame on me!) In fact, I didn't notice until was was gathering the ingredients for this picture. I probably would have chosen a different pin if I'd known, but this recipe seemed simple and best of all, I had all the ingredients in my house! It was too late to turn back, and though I enjoy salt, I decided to be true to the recipe and make it salt-free.

The Seasoning

I minced my garlic and put it and my seasoning into the oil. It's a very strange looking concoction. The instructions advise you to "dip each filet into the seasoning" and place it in the pan. I used the recommended amount of everything (oil, spices, etc), but I wasn't able to dip very well. There wasn't enough liquid to cover the fish. I wound up pouring the mixture onto the fish which you're instructed to do before cooking anyway.

About to go into the oven.

I was supposed to line my pan with parchment paper. Well, I didn't have parchment paper, I and really didn't want make a trip to the store for one thing. So I skipped the parchment paper (Sorry guys. I have failed you all. I know.) and baked my tilapia for 10 minutes on 400.

Left: Mine - Right: Eat Clean Diet

Mine didn't look as pretty as the recipe's photo, but then, my pictures rarely do. For having no salt, it was good. Not wonderful, but still good. It had decent flavor with just a little kick of heat. I liked it enough to eat about half of my fillet before adding salt. So much for eating clean! My husband agreed it was good. He ate all of his salt-free. The recipe's picture looks fresh and inviting, but mine came out heavy and a bit too oily. Perhaps if I'd used parchment paper it would have soaked up the oil. Honestly, I've never used parchment paper (mostly because whenever I look for it, I can't find it), so really have no idea if it would make a difference. Still, a decent dish if you're trying to "eat clean" or just cut back on salt.

Final Rating: 5.5 (1 = Bad, 10 = Awesome)