Fantastically Oily and Salty Burnt Tilapia
This tilapia may look burnt and oily, and it is indeed very very salty (I don't think you can see salty... at least I can't) but it's the NUMBER ONE BEST fish thing I've ever made.
Me mum (who isn't British but I just say it like that) used to make tilapia like this: heavily seasoned and cooked to death in lots of oil.
I've made what I think are some refinements:
- Season your tilapias with salt, garam masala, tumeric, much kashmiri chili powder, and more salt
- Put a whole lot of mustard oil in a heated skillet. It should be pooling, though this isn't deep fried or anything. (I used one of my Misen stainless stick skillets and things don't stick to it if you heat the pan right.)
- Let the oil smoke a bit to get rid of that mustardy taste.
- Put the fish in and fry it. Fry it hard, harder than you've ever fried anything before. You're going for crispy edges and extremely dry insides. Flip as needed.
- At some point, squeeze some lemon juice over the fish. I also sprinkled some chaat masala because I've had it sitting in my cabinet for some time. In theory this is supposed to give it an added sour taste because of the dry mango powder... but I didn't experiment to see if there's anything to it.
- Once your fish is satisfactorily burnt, remove to a plate and throw some finaly cut onions into the skillet. Cook this pretty hard too. The onions should have sucked up most of the oil and given up all their sense of self and wellbeing.
Even though you're trying to lose weight so you look good for when you get to hopefully possibly maybe meet your dream girl in three weeks time (at least I think that's what's going to happen... but I've been fooled before), this oily, salty, burnt (or "blackened" is the proper term maybe) tilapia must be eaten over rice.
