This was almost a bit of a request for the first recipe in this, so Kendall this post goes out to you! I told you I would show you how to make fish, and here it is. It really doesn't have much of a fishy smell to it.
This is the type of fish I tend to use, unless I am looking for something specific like salmon. Tilapia is usually available fairly cheap, these come with individually wrapped and frozen fillets, so if you want to cook just one you can.
I prefer to cook a bit more than just one fillet at a time and then I can just reheat something at a later time instead of needing to actually do the cooking. I cut open the individual fillets and then drain out any extra fluid in the package.
I season each fillet with salt and pepper, and then I happen to have some spice blends that I use for fish, but each person can have their own preference. You could just cook it up simply seasoned and eat it like that or with a squeeze of lemon to liven it up a little bit.
In a large pan over medium heat I melted about 4 tablespoons of butter. When cooking with butter absolutely make sure that you don't overheat it, or that butter will burn pretty quickly. I put the seasoned side down into the pan and then seasoned the opposite side in the pan as well.
I cook each side for about 2-3 minutes, and then i removed the fillets from the pan to drain and cool off. I cook them until they are cooked through, and will flake with a fork, but do not fall apart when lifted on its own.
This is 2 lbs of cooked tilapia fillets. I mentioned that I like to make a decent amount of food at once, this was 9 total fillets, 3 sets going through the pan. I wouldn't use the same butter for more than that as it definitely got quite brown by the end.
To do along with the fish I actually wanted to make a bit of an English side dish. I have heard it referred to as mushy peas, but this is my take on a Rachel Ray recipe for mashed peas. I believe the English version is actually made with with more of a split dried pea than a green pea. I used 2 lbs of frozen green peas which I then thawed and drained.
The next step in the process is to smash the peas of course. I use a potato masher, and I mash them until the majority of the peas appear to have broken. You could use a food processor to roughly chop them, but alas I don't have one of those to use.
To start the cooking of this dish I use shallots. Shallots are related to onions, but they are smaller, and have a much milder flavor to them. They would be good for someone who doesn't like too much onion flavor in their food, and they can be found in most grocery stores.
Chopped shallots were added to some melted butter and cooked in the pan over medium high heat until the shallots were translucent.
I added the smashed peas to the pan and stirred to combine, make sure you get all of the liquid with the peas out of the whatever you mashed them in. I cooked the peas and shallots together for about 5 minutes stirring regularly. The peas will start to give up a little of their liquid.
After cooking the mixture for a bit I added one can of chicken stock. I stirred everything together and brought it all to a simmer.
Stirring the peas every few minutes while simmering. I cook the peas until there is only a small amount of liquid left in the pan.
Once enough liquid has been cooked out of the peas, I added some chopped mint and chopped parsley to the pan and stirred it all in. I removed it from heat and let it cool together and made sure the herbs were nicely spread through the pea mixture.
As I have been doing lately, this is a sample meal and how I would put it in the refrigerator individually, I am not sure I will be daring enough to heat fish up at work this week!
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