Tilapia

Tilapia with jewelled rice (feeds two)

If you haven't had Tilapia before it's well worth a try.  Lovely succulent flesh (as long as you don't overcook it!) that can take a spicy marinade.

I pre-cooked enough brown rice for me and Wendywoo (with a bit left over for the dogs tomorrow) and set it aside to cool.  In this case 'set aside to cool' was a trip to Pembury Hosptal to visit her lovely Mum who went in today for a procedure.

The tilapia fillets (four fillets are a good meal for two people in my book) were marinated for a couple of hours in a good glug of olive oil, three cloves of garlic, a roughly chopped scotch bonnet pepper (wash your hands immediately after handling and DON'T scratch or rub anywhere tender!), a couple of teaspoons of tomato puree, salt and pepper.  For this dish instead of bulk standard tomato puree I used the Sacla range sundried tomato intense paste.  The bigger Sainsburys stock it sometimes and when I find it I usually stock up with half a dozen jars or so.  It's got a lovely depth of flavour to it.

For the jewelled rice:

Cut an onion in half and then finely slice.  Butter (the usual sinful amount) and a tablespoon of olive oil in a pan over a lowish heat and soften the onion.  While it's softening add a couple of finely chopped cloves of garlic, a red chilli (sliced across and with the seeds left in unless you're a wimp!), about half of a yellow pepper roughly diced and a handful of frozen peas.  Add enough rice for the two of you and mix everything together.  Add more butter to make it unctuous looking if you failed miserably on the sinful scale earlier.  After a few minutes add half a teaspoon of groud tumeric and half a handful of chopped coriander.  I usually add mostly the stalks at this point and save the leaves for a garnish.  Now whack the heat up to stir fry mode and keep moving it about to cook the rice through.

For the tilapia:

About two minutes ago you needed to have put a large pan on a moderate to high heat and melted about 25g of butter with a bit of olive oil in a pan.  When it starts to foam add the tilapia fillets to the pan.  Cook on one side for between two to three minutes, turn off the rice pan and cover to keep warm and then turn the fillets over.  Cook for a further two minutes until cooked through...do not overcook!

Dish up the rice and tilapia, drizzle over the cooking butter and liberally scatter with chopped coiander.

Simples!