Moti Girl Recipe: Tilapia a la Foil

Bonjour!  Or shall I begin with Ni Hao this morning? I begin today's blog post with a yummy-in-your-tummy,  healthy Asian inspired Tilapia recipe with a fancy French name. As my quest to shed my Moti Girl pounds continue, I came across an interesting recipe that I reconfigured a little bit to incorporate all my favorite ingredients.  It's quite simple, low maintenance and a delish recipe, that I had to share with you all!

I'm not much of a measurer, but I will do my best for you guys.

Ingredients:

• 2 tablespoons of chopped chives
• 7 garlic cloves grated in a microplane (I tend to throw in a few more cloves for added flavor)
• 1 teaspoon of grated ginger
• 1 tablespoon of red crushed pepper
• 2 tablespoons of Sesame Oil
• 1/4 cup of low sodium Soy Sauce
• 1 teaspoon of Chinese 5 spice seasoning
• 5-6 pieces of fresh Tilapia (you can probably do this with any kid of mild white fish)
• Splashes of Ponzu sauce
• Foil

Begin by preheating your oven to 350 degrees.  In a bowl, combine the first 7 ingredients and whisk it till the marinade/sauce is nicely blended together (chives, garlic, ginger, red crushed peppers, sesame oil, soy sauce and 5 spice). Whisk it good...

Take the Tilapia out of the fridge and rinse it under the sink and make sure to pat dry it with paper towels.  This is more so your marinade/sauce doesn't get the excess water in it.

rinse the fish

pat dry

Now tear out a large piece of foil out and place a piece of Tilapia in the middle of the sheet.   Depending on the sizes of fish, you can either put one big piece or a couple small pieces of fish together on the foil.  Spoon 2 generous tablespoons of the marinade over the fish and then splash (a teaspoon of the Ponzu sauce over the fish as well).  Ponzu is a citrus-based Japanese sauce and is available at any grocery store. I personally like to peruse the Asian markets for stuff like this, because it is a lot cheaper there (yeah I'm cheapo) and you get way more variety.  I like using it because it gives the dish a little bit of citrus flavor without overwhelming it with fresh citrus. I am partial to the lime flavored Ponzu Sauce.

adding marinade

Lime flavored Ponzu sauce

Neatly enclose the fish into a foil packet and place all the packets on a baking sheet.

Foil packets of Fish

Bake the fish for 20 minutes in the oven.  You'll know that the fish is close to being done when the foil packets puff up with steam and sauce emerges from the corners of the foil packets.  Variation:  Sometimes I like to add shredded carrots and broccoli on top of the fish.  Trader Joes has this awesome ready-to-go shredded vegetable mix for cole slaw that works perfectly with this dish.  I like to sneak in as many veggies as I can for the fams.

Puffed up foil packets

Now take the baking sheet out and open the foil pack with care, a lot of steam will escape as you open the packet. You don't want to give yourself a facial while cooking.

open with care

yummy tilapia

I like to make this with some brown jasmine rice and steamed bok choy.  This particular day I made it  brown jasmine rice with corn and shitake mushrooms and steamed baby bok choy with garlic.  I will share the bok choy recipe later this week.

Voila

I hope you guys will attempt this recipe and enjoy it as much as I do. It is truly very simple and tasty, not to mention healthy.  I think cooking in foil or parchment is easy and makes for a very flavorful meal   Feel free to leave comments on what you thought or on variations that you might have attempted.  

Thanks again folks, this is your Moti Girl bidding you adieu!  :)

Silencing the Lamb

Hola peoples.  So maybe this wasn't best title choice, but I got the seal of approval from Fish who just nodded in agreement because he was too busy zoned in on his precious Warriors to give me a coherent response.  Do I need to mention that they were losing by like 20+ points? I guess I shouldn't rub it in :) I digress. So silencing the lamb it is. Or maybe I should have titled it slicing the lamb? Okay, I will stop there I promise. I made my first attempt at cooking lamb shanks today, so if you aren't interested in reading my escapades in the culinary world, it would be advisable to stop reading now!  :) 

My good friend Amina gave me a very mouthwatering recipe for Tandoori lamb shanks but unfortunately for me I was fresh out of Tandoori Masala, the key ingredient (sorry home slice). So instead I used a mashed up version of Munira's Aunty's Roasted Lamb shank with my own.  I took the liberty of taking a few iPhone photos for you.  My iPhone camera sucks, so bear with me please.  

Last night when I popped into my local Safeway to get milk, I walked by the meat section and was immediately drawn to the lamb display.  All the lamb at Safeway is from New Zealand which also makes it halal. Woo hoo! They had quite a variety, from boneless leg of lamb, to bone-in leg of lamb, lamb steaks, racks of lamb, lamb chops and lamb shanks. I prefer to cook the boneless leg of lamb or the rack but since I had never attempted lamb shanks before I figured it couldn't hurt to try.  I'm not one of those measuring type people, I prefer to approximate everything. So for all you people out there who need exact measurements, I tried my best to approximate the measurements but feel free to tweak it to your liking. That's what I always tend to do. I was once told by a very wise friend, that if you change 3 ingredients in a recipe, then it automatically becomes your very own recipe. Works for me! :) (I kid, I kid)


Ingredients:

• 2 pounds of Lamb shanks
• 2 lemons (zest & juice)
• 10 cloves of garlic (use less or more, I'm a garlic fiend so I probably used more)
• 3 tablespoons of unripened minced papaya (you can find this pre-packaged now at the Halal Meat store)
• 1/2 teaspoon of turmeric (supposedly takes away the gamey flavor)
• 1 teaspoon of cumin powder
• 1 teaspoon of coriander
• 1 (or more) teaspoon of Cayenne
• 1 tablespoon of chops/steak Masala (you can use Shan or whatever brand you prefer)
• 1/3 cup of Greek Yogurt (Why Greek? Well that's all I had in my fridge, plus I like the taste. I don't think the type matters)
• 1/4 cup of Olive oil
• 1/2 of cilantro
• 4/5 green onions
• 1 small pear (I just threw this in because Munira Aunty mentioned using Green Chutney in her recipe and I thought it would add a little extra something) 
• 1/2 cup of mint
• 1 teaspoon of salt (you might need to adjust this. I tend to measure everything in the palm of my hand)
• 1 beef cube

In a casserole dish I added the yogurt, all the spices (cayenne, cumin, coriander, salt, chops/steak Masala, turmeric), the minced papaya and the lemon zest/ juice and gave it a good whisk.  I took the liberty of taking of photograph of my handy dandy microplane (and yes that was a Dora reference) because I would be ever so lost without it.  I use it for everything. To zest/grind/mince any kind of citrus, garlic, ginger, onions, really anything.

In a food processor or a mini chopper put the garlic cloves, olive oil, green onions, cilantro, mint and the pear and mince everything up. 

Then add this mixture to the yogurt and spice mixture in the casserole dish and make sure it's all blended together nicely. Voila! The marinade is ready.

Then place the shanks in the marinade and score the the lamb.  Cover it and let it marinade overnight or as long as you can. I'm all about marinading forever. I like my food with lots of flavor. Who doesn't?

Score both sides of the meat

Marinade Bath

The shanks will need to cook in the oven for about two hours. Heat a grill pan on medium to high heat so that you can sear the shanks before you bake them. Bring two cups of water to a soft rolling boil and plop the beef cube in and make sure it properly dissolves.  Make sure to preheat the oven to 300 degrees.

Shake off all excess marinade (really shake it off, or it won't get a pretty brown crust) and sear the shanks on all sides. Meanwhile, take the beef stock and pour it all in a new casserole dish with one cup of the remaining lamb marinade. After the shanks are seared place them in the casserole dish with the cooking liquid, cover them tightly with foil and bake the shanks for about two hours.

As you can see that I went a little too sear happy. Maybe a little less char would be better.

After the two hours are over, crank the broiler and broil the shanks for about five minutes tops, also making sure you turn the them so the meat caramelizes all around. Take the shanks out of the oven and now go get your grub on! 

According to Fish, it was extremely delicious (he's not the most accurate judge because he says that about everything I cook. He's sweet but biased). The shanks were tasty, but they were missing a spicy kick to it. I loved that the meat fell off the bone and that it had a nice green chutneyish crust to it. I will definitely cook this again but making sure to increase the spice factorial.

My plated glory: Roasted lamb shank, goat cheese mashed potatoes, sauteed green beans and quinoa.

Well that's about it for now. :) Enjoy, we sure did.