Baked Butter Tilapia Fillets

Baked fish seem like the easiest way to prepare fish for me these days.  It is basically fuss free and ready in 10 minutes.  Since we like the flavor of butter and some crispiness on the fish, I used the dried chopped onion on the fish, it provides the crispiness to the fish fillets.  Also added some dried celery flakes, I guess extra celery flakes and onion won't hurt as those two are pretty much superfood.  Just season lightly with natural sea salt or Himalayan rock salt for the natural minerals.  Just pair it with steamed broccoli and carrot (if you don't eat carb or rice) and Viola and there you have it!  

Korean Fish Patties/ Saeng Son Jon

 

When I saw this recipe in a Korean cookbook that I borrowed from the library, I found it intriguing.  I never thought of adding chopped fish into a pan-fry eggs before.  But after I gave it a thought, actually Chinese also have our version, we called it "Egg Foo Yong", but instead of fish, we used shrimps and BBQ pork.  Since this recipe intriguing me, of course I wanted to see how it would taste like and made it myself.  Chopped fish went so well in fried eggs and this fish patties were actually scrumptious.  But I wouldn't recommend to eat it often as it was a little oily, as with all fried food.  Later I asked my elder girl whether she knew what was in the patties that she loved so much and she had no clue.  After I told her it was fish, she was like ewww.  Well, I didn't know why that was her respond because she is not a fish hater.  I guess if you want to encourage or trick your little fish hater to eat fish, you can make this dish.  Hahaha...

Making an all Korean meal took a lot of work.  So I actually served this with Belacan sweet potato leaves and mint egg drop soup.

Baked Tilapia with Honey Mustard and Panko

It was a fish day and I was cracking my head for something new to serve my family.  I remembered I did a honey mustard sauce tilapia fish before which my girls loved.  So, I thought I would make the same sauce again except this time I added some crumbs topping.  I used panko and added some seasonings and coated the fish before baking.  I bought the fish on sales for $3.50 per pound and it came with 5 fillets, so for two fillets, it only cost me $1.40.  It was cheaper than the yam leaves dish that I served along this.  I paid $2.93 for a bunch of yam leaves.  But overall, it was still less than $5 for a two dishes meal.

Easy Baked Tilapia Fillets

This baked fish is super easy even for busy working mom or stay at home mom.  Total time in preparation and cooking is less than 20 minutes.  It looks like it has crusted top, but it has not, all it has on top is just spices and salt.

I used Italian herbs seasoning because I couldn't use Teriyaki sauce or Chinese seasoning in this as it needed to be paired with my macaroni pasta.  You can say it was a western dinner night.  :)

Fish in Creamy Sauce

We know how important seafood is in our diet.  Among all the seafood, fish is considered the best choice for me as it is affordable, lower in cholesterol compared with the rest of the seafood except scallop & sea cucumber and nutritious.  I love to cook fish twice a week, alternating Salmon and Tilapia.

I used Tilapia in this and to get rid of the fishy smell, I marinated the fish with salt, ShaoXing wine and white pepper.  Of course in my cooking, I got to throw in colorful mixed vegetable for extra fiber.  I added one secret ingredient in this dish, evaporated milk for extra creaminess and fragrant.  Just don't over stir the fish to prevent it from broken out.

Another one of my easy dishes with minimal ingredients.  If you don't have evaporated milk, feel free to substitute it with cream or milk.

Special Rice Dish

What so special about this rice dish? Special as in the cooking method is different, it took two steps. One is stir-frying the rice first, you can add in eggs for eggs fried rice, or leave it plain, just soy sauce and garlic. I left the rice above plain because I just had eggs fried rice the day before. Then, you prepare a white sauce dish to pour it on top. The white sauce dish can be shrimps with frozen mixed vegetable, or fish with Chinese green (chai Hsin) like above, or scallops with beaten egg white, basically anything you can think of. Serve it as one dish meal. I have a similar fish recipe here if you want to take a look. 

Because of the sauce laden on the eggs fried rice, it made the rice soft and can be easily digested by elderly people or young children.

Crispy Baked Fish Fillets

Since I had a successful crunchy baked chicken strips the other day, I thought why not try it on fish fillets. We loved baked fish and it would be an extra yum if the baked fish is crunchy right? I was out of the cereal that I used before, so I had to make my own coating for my fish. I was trying with the combination of homemade bread crumbs, walnuts and cornflakes. The resulted fish was not as crunchy as my chicken strips, I think I know the reason. I did not use a lot of the cornflakes, also my cornflakes was crushed too finely. The walnuts and bread crumbs did not give out too much crunch, only the cornflakes. So, make sure you don't crush the cornflakes too fine and pat it on a lot. Added nuts just because I wanted to add more nutrition to my girls diet. By the way, both my girls loved this crispy baked fish as both of them asked for more after given two pieces each. I definitely make it again with just cornflakes and walnuts. This coating is healthy as cornflakes came packed with vitamins and minerals, and walnuts is high in omega 3 fatty acids and an antioxidant food which are heart healthy.

Ginger Scallion Fish Fillets

This dish was inspired by a dish we ordered at a Chinese restaurant in Denver. Theirs was drier and managed to keep the fish fillets from broken out. Mine was wet because I needed the stock to cook the fish fillets without the fish broken too much. Anyway, here is my version of the Asian-style ginger scallion fish fillets. You can use any white fish to make this dish, perhaps a more solid white fish would be ideal. Regardless this dish is delicious and healthy.

Baked Tilapia Fish Fillets

We are a family who prefer white fish meat. Salmon and Tuna which have the pink-hued meat are not to our liking even though they are high in Omega-3 fatty acids especially salmon. I guess we are not used to it as majority of the fishes we consumed in Asia are white meat fishes. Among all the frozen fish fillets sold here we really like the texture of Tilapia fish. It is soft and smooth and go well with steaming, baking, deep-frying, pan-frying or in soup (just add it in last), because of that it is the best frozen fish fillet to have in my freezer. Strangely enough, this fish is considered cheap in Asia but not here. I have seen the value of this fish increase over time, and it is about $4-$5/lb now. Anyway, sharing with you my easy no cleaning fish dish with you.

Seafood Nyonya Assam Curry

Assam curry or sour based curry is normally cooked with seafood. Most commonly is assam fish or assam prawns. Since I didn't have any fish fillet at home, I opted for shrimps, bay scallops and fish balls. I also threw in some green beans and fried tofu.



I used the Singlong Instant Curry Nyonya Assam Mix (Spicy) that was given by a friend. I added a little whole milk for extra creaminess. Overall it was pretty good but it was too spicy for the kids.

Seafood Veggies Curry

On lazy day, I love to cook easy, throw everything in one pot meal. I love to add a lot of vegetable in my seafood curry because I love veggies. With Claypot curry mix, I don't even have to worry about preparing coconut powder or coconut milk because it has been included in the packet. However, I don't really like this Claypot fish curry mix as compared to it's rendang beef. I preferred Delimas vegetable curry paste better. That's solely my own opinion okay. This big pot lasted us for three meals!

Ingredients:

1 packet of Claypot Nyonya Fish Curry Mix (also available at mytasteofasia.com)
3 fish fillets, cut
1 bowl of shrimps
8 fish balls, cut into half
1 bowl of fried beancurds (taufu pok), cut into half
2 carrots, sliced
1 cup of frozen green beans
1/4 of head cabbage, cut

Method:

In a big pot, add in oil in medium heat, fry the spice mix until fragrant. Add in the recommended coconut milk and all the vegetable. Simmer until the cabbage has soften, add in the seafood and fish balls, simmer for 10 minutes. Serve with white rice.

Cost Saving Dinner

With the high gas prices these days, home cook dinner is the way to safe. Due to the hike in gasoline, the grocery we buy at the store is more expensive too. Cooking dinner at home can be easy and it doesn't need to be TV dinner or frozen pizza. Just throw a Tilapia fish fillet (about $0.65 each, $2.50 a pound at WalMart frozen seafood section) in 450'F oven for 10 minutes and you get yourself a delicious dinner. For us, I prepared a simple eggs fried rice to go with it. Another suggestion is, you can make some instant white rice with mango salsa to go with the fish too.

For preparing this fish, I just lined the baking pan with a piece of aluminum foil so that after we done eating, I just threw away the foil. No washing necessary. First, I sprayed the fish with cooking spray. Then, I seasoned the top of the fish fillet with Bay seasoning, a little mixed peppers and lastly some homemade bread crumbs (yup just the top). Then it went into preheated 450'F oven for 10 minutes. Viola, you have yourself a healthy, cheap, delicious, fast and easy dinner.

Miso Sesame Seeds Baked Fish

I love quick and easy to prepare dish. Anything to cut down my preparation and cooking time is my best friend. And once I learned that I could use my oven to bake or steam fish, it was like striking gold to me. Because finally I found the healthier, quick and easy alternative.

I love to experiment with different toppings for my bake fish. After I read from Daphne and EMWK blogs that they used Miso in their baked fish, I was really interested to try it out (still waiting for them to post their version though! ;o)). My first attempt was a failure because I underestimated how salty Miso paste was and we ended out scraping all the Miso paste away before we ate the fish. The above picture was my successful second attempt. :o) Here sharing with you my recipe so that you won't make the same mistake I made earlier, especially for those who never try it before.

Delimas Assam Seafood Paste (Assam Fish)

I wanted to try this Delimas Assam Seafood Paste for awhile but just never really gotten a chance to do so. Perhaps I was thinking of getting the similar fish like those shown in the picture of the packet before I cooked it. But, months went by and I just didn't see it (or I never walked on the fish aisle when I was in the Asian Market). Anyway, long story short, I decided not to wait anymore and took out my frozen Tilapia fillets and started cooking.

I coated my fish fillets with rice flour and pan-fried until golden brown, set aside. Then, I followed the instruction at the back of the packet, mixed 350ml of water with the paste and let boiled, then added in the frozen okras (fresh ones are best of course) and let it simmered for 10 minutes. Pour the sauce and okras on a plate and placed the fried fish fillets on top and top with more Assam sauce before serving. (Sorrylah, no tomato!)

This is how the packet looks like. For those who lives in the U.S., you can buy it online at mytasteofasia.com. If you like Assam Fish, you will like this! If you have tried this paste, how you cooked yours and what fish did you use?

Product Review: Delimas Stir Fry Sauce

I have been invited by Ray, the founder of mytasteofasia.com to do product review on Delimas brand. I gladly accepted his offer because as a Malaysian, I love to help out a fellow Malaysian and to introduce delicious and easy to prepare Malaysian food to other Asians around the world. This paste is handy for a busy mother who just doesn't have time to do it from scratch. Or for working parents who just dead tired from a day work. Even for a novice cook who wants to impress her friends.



I was cooking for a friend who is moving to Boston and she requested a spicy Malaysian dish. What a better way to try my Delimas stir-fry sauce on the shrimps that I was intended to cook.



This is how the package looks like. It tasted like the authentic Malaysian Sambal Prawns and quite spicy.

Below is what I did:
Ingredients:

16 extra large prawns
6 cuttlefish balls, cut each into 3 slices (or you can use cuttlefish or squids)
A handful of green peas
1/2 small yellow onion, sliced
1/4 yellow bell pepper, sliced
1/4 orange bell pepper, sliced (or red/green bell pepper for colors contrast)
1 package of Delimas Stir Fry Sauce

Method:

Heat oil in a wok. When heated, add in prawns and cuttlefish balls, stir well. Then, add in the stir-fry sauce and the rest of the ingredients except peas. Stir to mix well, add a little water if need to. Lastly add in the green peas, give it a quick stir and serve hot.


Another way of cooking it:



One packet of sauce is a lot and thus I saved some to make this Sambal Green Beans. I added dried shrimps, sliced shallots and a wee bit of fish sauce. This sauce will be good for shrimps and petai too! Kind of a all-purpose stir fry sauce.

Brahim's Kuah Kari Ikan (Fish Curry)

I have tried several Brahim's premix like rendang, honey chicken, etc but nothing to shout about. But I would recommend Brahim's fish curry as shown below. It is delicious and tasted like Indian curry and quite spicy. It's a super fast and easy to whip up dinner because all you need is water and freezer ready ingredients. My hubby "sapu" (finished) the whole bowl down to the gravy.



Ingredients:

2 fish fillets, cut ( I used Tilapia, you can use cod or mahi-mahi)
6 small toufu pok, cut into half
12 frozen whole okras
1 cup frozen cut green beans
1 package Brahim's kuah kari ikan
3/4 cup water

Method:

1. In a pot, add water and the Brahim's sauce, turn up the heat, stir to mix well and let it boil.

2. When boiled, add the frozen veggies and taufu pok. Turn the heat to low, covered and let it simmer for 10 minutes.

3. Open the cover and add in the cut fish fillets, scoop some curry on top of the fish, covered and let it simmer for another 10-15 minutes. Serve hot with rice!



This is how the package looks like!

Fried Fish

Featuring one of my home cook dishes.

Ingredients:

~ 1 Tilapia fish fillet
~ Thinly shredded gingers

Batter for fish:
Self rising flour, salt & black pepper. Mixed in with enough water to make a thick batter.

Method:

Heat up oil, made sure the oil is hot, if not the fish will stick to the wok. Or use a non-stick skillet. Dipped the fish fillet in the batter and slowly put it into the hot oil. Deep-fry both sides until golden brown. Dish out. Add in the shredded gingers and deep-fry until crispy, dish out and place on top of the fish. You can drizzle some soy sauce on top. Serves hot!

Tom Yum Fish

I like to make my own Tom Yum soup sometimes as we can get Tom Yum Paste virtually in every oriental stores these days. Tom Yum Gong is for tom yam soup with shrimps only. But there are a lot of variety these days, you can have seafood tom yum where fish, shrimps and cutterfish would be added. Or you can have fish tom yum, even crabs tom yum would be delicious.

The above is my fish tom yum (short-cut version). It's my way of cutting down on shrimps (or more precisely cholesterol intake).