Go Fish
Before officially settling into my summer routine, I had time to reflect on my junior year and how it impacted me. I won’t go into every single detail or else I’d be here writing forever but simply put, junior year was the year I really grew up. I learned about focus. I learned about determination. Most importantly though, I learned about peace and being okay with things not going as planned and people…well being people. There were a lot of those moments and I had to decide if I was going to let them impact me negatively or grow from the experience. I’m sure I sound very lofty right now and am having a “coming to Jesus” moment, but I’m not. It took an entire nine months of what felt like an uphill battle eighty percent of the time to get where I am today. I can confidently say though, that I kind of needed to go through it all. I’m a totally different person than who I was at the beginning of junior year, and in my professional opinion, I think it’s for the best.
Anyways, back to our regularly scheduled programming, a few weeks ago my mother made Tilapia. It was absolutely delicious, but I wanted to challenge myself and see if I could elevate it. Watching hours of Masterchef on Hulu does that to you. Today, my mother went to her hair appointment. Because I need to fit into a series of form-fitting outfits in the next few days, I decided not to call and place our family’s unusually large Bon-Chon order and decided to do a variation of the Tilapia she made. I made a blackened Tilapia basted in perhaps the most delicious garlic butter in the world. I really liked it and I hope you do too.
All my Love,
Claire
Blackened Tilapia: Serves 4
Ingredients
Four Tilapia Fillets (fresh or frozen)
2 sticks of butter (16 Tbps.)
Old Bay seasoning
1 Tbsp. minced garlic
DIY
On a cutting board or whatever flat surface you have, sprinkle enough old bay to cover your fillets on both sides. Make sure to massage it in to create the most beautiful crust you’ve ever seen
Next, take four Tbsp. (or more if you want) of your first stick of butter and place it in a large pan on medium heat
When the butter is halfway melted, add a portion of your minced garlic into the pan
Now go low and slow, set your stove a few notches lower, and carefully stir the minced garlic into the butter. The goal at this point is to lightly toast the garlic. You want a very light brown color. Anything darker and your fish will taste like burnt garlic.
Fish Time! Turn up the pan to high heat or medium if you’re one of those people that has endless time to cook, and carefully add one fish fillet.
For normal high heat people, set a timer and cook the Tilapia for four minutes on each side. At minute three began basting your fish in the butter.
WTF is basting?- Basting is cooking meat in its own fat or another fat (butter in this case). Bring all the butter to the edge of the pan, grab a spoon, and ladle the butter all over the fish. Look at you! You’re basting!
Repeat step six on the other side
Before removing the fish from the pan, turn off the heat. Carefully remove the fish from the pan using a spatula and a fork (Tilapia breaks very easily so go slow).
Serve on a bed of rice, with roasted green beans, or even broccoli.
The End
Dinner
Blackened Tilapia with roasted green beans and white rice on a paper plate because I had dish duty…
