We are not a fish family. Maybe because the only fish I ever tried growing up were fresh-caught trout straight from Bear Lake that were filled with little bones. Well, and McDonalds fish sandwiches but I’m pretty sure those don’t count. Needless to say, it didn’t do much to convince me of the goodness of fish. But the years have mellowed my tastes. I still can’t do salmon (I did give it a valiant effort a few months ago with a cilantro ginger glaze…didn’t go over well). But I love sea bass and halibut. And I think tilapia is my favorite. Maybe because you can buy big bags of it at Costco. And you can make stuff like this fish taco recipe that I posted back here. Now the goal is to get my family to like it too. I got this baked tilapia recipe here (with 178 5-star reviews), and tweaked it a little bit from the suggestions from the comments. It was good enough that my non-fish-liking family gobbled it all right up speedy quick. This is all you need: 6-8 tilapia fillets 2 limes (juiced and “zested”) Salt and freshly cracked pepper for seasoning butter Here’s how I did it: Wash and pat dry the fillets and line them up in a baking dish sprayed with cooking spray. Squeeze out the lime juice and grate off a little bit of the peel for the zest. TIP: Elle and I learned how to get the maximum amount of juice from a lime in our Thai cooking class at the end of this post. Here’s Elle demonstrating: Soften it up by applying a lot of pressure while rolling it under your palm:
Hold the lime upright and slice off three equal pieces (leaving a triangle in the middle):
…but usually a little bigger than this triangle so you can squeeze that too.
Squeeze the juice from those softened suckers:
Then grate a little of the washed peel:
Pour that juice over the fillets. Then add salt and pepper, or if you have a wing-dinger thing like this that I splurged on at Dean and Deluca a while back, by all means, use that!
(That stuff is divine if you put it in olive oil and balsamic vinegar for French bread dipping too…my mouth is watering….) Put a little pat of butter on each seasoned fillet:
Bake at 425 for five minutes. Take out of the oven, turn over fillets and then cook them for 15 minutes more. While you wait look out your window and let your heart melt for a minute while you watch your scraggly-swim-suited-girls help each other do some cool moves:
Take it out (even though it doesn’t get very browned, but make sure it’s not translucent anymore).
Eat it up with your family for the first family dinner you’ve had for a while since life has sped out of control lately. Let your children wear their swimsuits to the dinner table. Let your daughter indulge in her insistence that she must wear a green oven mit to fully enjoy her food.
Adhere to your daughter’s request for a picture together since you happened to totally match that day.
Let your swim-suited girls join in for a picture because they are dying to.
Be a task master at getting the kitchen cleaned up, play one game of Rummikub for Family Home Evening (and win, yes!), help with homework, finish folding three loads of laundry, and fall in bed. Fall asleep with a smile on your face that you took your kids one step closer to becoming fish-lovers.
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