golden tilapia

• total tid: total time 30 minutes

Ingredienser

1 (6- to 8-ounce) skinless tilapia fillet, split lengthwise down natural seam

⅛ teaspoon table salt

1 tablespoon oil

Lemon wedges

Vejledning

1 Sprinkle tilapia with salt and let sit at room temperature for

15 minutes. Pat tilapia dry with paper towels.

2 Heat oil in 10-inch nonstick skillet over high heat until just smoking. Add tilapia to skillet and cook, tilting and gently shaking skillet occasionally to distribute oil, until golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes. Using 2 spatulas, flip tilapia and cook until second sides are golden brown, 2 to 3 minutes, reducing heat if skillet begins to smoke. Serve with lemon wedges.

Notater

kitchen improv

use what you've got You can use catfish, flounder, or sole in place of the tilapia in this recipe.

level up A compound butter (see pages 70-71) or finishing salt (see page 73) ups the elegance of this dish.

get saucy Make a quick pan sauce by browning butter in the pan, and adding capers and lemon juice off the heat. Spoon over the tilapia.

why this recipe works Tilapia is meaty, mild, and tender, and we love that it freezes well so we can dig into our freezer to produce a meal on the fly. While tilapia's flavor isn't that far off from thicker fillets like cod or haddock, that doesn't mean it can be cooked the same-unlike those more delicate fish, tilapia can handle the direct heat of stovetop cooking. But it requires a bit of finessing to get right: The thick half of a thin, wide fillet rests flat on the pan and browns nicely during sautéing, but the thin half tilts up, hardly making contact at all. Splitting the fillet down its natural seam into a thick and a thin portion allowed for more precise cooking and even browning. Salting the pieces of tilapia and letting them rest

for 15 minutes before cooking seasoned the mild tilapia throughout

and kept the fish moist as it cooked. This style of cooking is easy

to achieve with a wide variety of thin fish, and can be fancied up with sauces and spices to match all kinds of sides—we love it with

a lemon-caper pan sauce served alongside Roasted Broccoli with

Garlic (page 83).