I have been given some frozen fillets of cod and tilapia. I don’t cook fish much, except for pan-fried catfish, and sometimes broiled salmon.
Can cod and tilapia be panfried the way catfish can? I usually dip the latter in milk and a seasoned crumb mix. What about baking fish?
If anyone can give me pointers I’d appreciate it. And if I don’t do it right, there’s always the garbage disposal, also known as my dog. Mauser eats anything. If there’s something else to do with the fish, some other dish I mean, I’d like to hear about it.
Feel free to add your own questions. I’m pretty good at most cooking, but have a lot to learn about fish.
Not too familiar with cooking cod, but for tilapia I’d either bake it or saute in a butter olive oil mix.
Season with some ground pepper or other seasoning you like and I’d start it on the curved side for a while, then flip it over to finish. In a medium hot pan maybe 12 minutes or so. It should flake easily with a fork when it’s done and look somewhat browned at the thin edges. Plate and add a little lemon juice if desired.
My favorite though is catfish fillets baked in parchment paper.
½ cup panko crumbs
½ cup grated parmesan cheese (can also use nutritional yeast)
Cracked pepper to taste
3 TB butter, melted (sub olive oil if you don’t want to use butter)
Oven 425F.
Put the dry ingredients together and mix in the melted butter. Put the fish on a baking sheet and cover the top with the coating. Bake for about 13 minutes, depending on size and thickness of fish.
I have about a grillion cod recipes, but this works for just about any white flaky fish.
Thank You, Thank You, Thank You for not posting “panko bread crumbs” which as I’ve posted in other threads is a major pet peeve of mine! It’s either panko or panko crumbs. Not pan ko (bread flour) bread crumbs!!!
At least one manufacturer doesn’t have your extreme reservations regarding terminology. Reading from a can in my larder, “4C bread crumbs…Panko Japanese Style Bread Crumbs are delicious…coat with 4C Seasoned Panko Crumbs…”
It appears that the terms are somewhat interchangeable and loosely applied.
In English, “panko” doesn’t break down into those constituent words, so it doesn’t really matter what it means in the original language. See, for example “The La Brea Tar Pits” which is all sorts of redundancy. “Panko bread crumbs” is perfectly fine.
Okay, I concede. Pan (rhymes with can) ko bread crumbs is perfectly fine in English. I’m just glad my grandparents, parents and almost all my first generation born in the U.S. relatives (nisei) are gone and not able to hear the travesty. SIGH
Besides, as sansei (third generation) my Japanese stinks and probably wouldn’t be intelligible to a native speaker anyway. :rolleyes:
I’ll continue to stew in my panko pet peeve juices quietly from now on.
I like using tilapia to make ceviche. Just slice the fish into 1 - 2 inch long strips, mince some hot pepper, dice some onion, maybe add some parsley or cilantro. Marinate all that in some lime juice for a few hours or overnight. Mmmmmmmm.
The lime juice acidity cooks the fish, hence the length of marination. Ceviche can be made with various seafood, tilapia happens to be cheap and works well, but my favorite is conch.
Tonight I did beer-battered fish and chips with cod. We had the thick loins, which would not do as well breaded and fried. Too thick, whereas the batter helps insulate the fish while it cooks evenly from all sides when frying.
Both tilapia and cod, especially tilapia, are mild fish that can be prepared and seasoned in so may ways because they are just a protein conduit for whatever flavors you want to add. I have a reciped for hazelnut crusted tilapia with a lemon cream sauce, though I’ll often swap in local fish (flounder, fluke, porgy, seabass) that I’ve caught. Tilapia can also be “blackened”, if that’s to your liking.
True dat. IMHO, tilapia basically doesn’t have much of a taste in and of itself. Cod slightly more so, but not much. Whatever flavor you’re tasting was added, not inherent. Kinda like chicken - funny that tuna got the “chicken-of-the-sea” moniker since tuna has an actual flavor.
If it is frozen I’d thaw it first and use it in a curry.
Make pretty much any curry sauce you fancy, Thai, indian, Goan, Bangladeshi, then bring it to the simmer, drop in the fish fillet and turn the heat off. The fish will cook in the residual heat and be pretty much perfect.
Mix tarragon into mayonnaise. (We like lots of tarragon.)
Coat tilapia fillets with the mixture.
Roll fillets in panko bread crumbs.
Bake at 375ºF until done.
I put aluminum foil onto a baking sheet, and spray it with non-stick spray.
