Grilled Tilapia with Smoked Paprika and Parmesan Polenta
Ingredients
For the polenta
4 cups milk (I used skim lactose free, you can use whichever type you like.)
1 cup instant polenta
1⁄4 teaspoon salt
1⁄3 cup Parmesan cheese, grated
For the tilapia
1 1⁄2 tablespoon olive oil
1 teaspoon smoked paprika (Regular paprika will work in a pinch.)
1⁄2 teaspoon garlic powder
1⁄2 teaspoon salt
1⁄4 teaspoon black pepper
4 (6 ounces each) tilapia fillets
Cooking spray
Instructions
1. To prepare polenta, bring milk to a boil in a medium saucepan; gradually add polenta, stirring constantly with a whisk. Reduce heat, and cook 5 minutes or until thick, stirring frequently; stir in 1⁄4 teaspoon salt. Remove from heat. Stir in cheese; cover and keep warm.
2. To prepare fish, heat a large nonstick grill pan over medium-high heat. Combine oil and next 4 ingredients in a bowl, stirring well. Rub fish evenly with oil mixture. Coat pan with cooking spray. Add fish to pan; cook 4 minutes on each side or until fish flakes easily when tested with a fork or until desired degree of doneness.
Comments
This recipe is from the 2009 Cooking Light Annual.
Normally when I try out a new recipe I’m pretty careful to follow it to the letter, at least the first time. There are a few substitutions I’ll make often, like half and half for heavy cream if the cream doesn’t need to be whipped, but I try to stay true. For this recipe, the grocery store just conspired against me.
1) The only frozen tilapia I could find was marinated. Since I’m not very knowledgeable when it comes to fish I opted to get the least offensive of the marinated tilapia and hope that it would be fine. I came home with Toasted Black Pepper Tilapia. I thawed the fish, which comes in individually wrapped portions, under running water. Then I opened each pouch and rinsed each fillet. Thankfully the finished product was excellent and I couldn’t taste anything that I could identify as “toasted black pepper” with all of the other flavors going on.
2) Then there was the issue of instant polenta. Apparently this is something I can only find at the grocery store that is at the opposite end of town from the one I was shopping at. I try not to go that far out of my way for a single ingredient and I knew I had some instant polenta at home from my last foray into polenta cooking. I thought to myself, “Self, grits are very similar to polenta, so how about just getting some instant grits to top off the polenta you have at home?” And that’s what I did. I used about 2⁄3 cup of instant polenta and 1⁄3 cup quick grits. This seemed to work out quite well and I was pretty happy with the finished product.
And then there was the issue of my “nonstick grill pan” not being very nonstick anymore… but despite all of these setbacks Lance and I were both thrilled with the results!
The moral of this story is “don’t be afraid to tweak things!”
Shown here with Oven Roasted Broccoli.
Cooking Light 2009