Tilapia Question

[shrimp nasty]

Afternoon all,

Gonna try my hand at some tilapia in a few hours. Personally, I don't like any seafood, but the wife does and I'm making myself some chicken. Anyways, got it going in a simple brine for a bit and am figuring 220 for an hour tops (they're really small filets). Any other input would be great. Who knows, maybe I can find a way to tolerate seafood. Hope yall had a Merry Christmas and have a good new year.


Cheers
Shrimp

 

[leah elisheva]

OK, so mopping the fish through oil, and smoking it on "high heat" (420-ish) for just some minutes - maybe 15-20 - could work. (Or so in my mad-cow, I mean "mad-cod," opinion, I do think).

And when you sit down together, at that aromatic meal and such, you will love it!

In fact, "seafood" and fish, and mollusks, will most likely get added to your list and become really wonderful! But then what do I know, right? Smiles.

Just sharing my happy ocean opinion. I believe you will have a very magical dinner! Enjoy! Cheers! - Leah

 

[geerock]

Hey Shrimp,
The best way to start enjoying seafood is to start smoking it. I just did fennel smoked fresh caught blackfish today. Caught this morning in CT waters and eaten by 2 this afternoon. PHENOMENAL! Had my daughter come over with a couple interesting wines. She loves smoked fish but she never had tautog (blackfish) before so I smoked it after soaking in a herb buttermilk and smoking on a bed of sliced fennel, a bit of ginger and using pecan wood for smoke. A little grilled / smoked asparagus and baby red potatoes......WOW. Even an ol' brisket eater like me was real surpised with the flavors. I'll be sure to do the q view thing next time. Let us know how your tilapia turned out.

 

[daveomak]

Snrinp, afternoon..... Let us know how it turns out.... sounds good to me...

Low and slow like the 220 for an hour...... the fish may fall apart.... That won't hurt it one bit... It should be tender and tasty....

Sounds like something I should do for fish tacos.... We really like fish tacos around here and they are made with Tilapia..

Dave

 

[mdboatbum]

Well since you don't like seafood, Tilapia might be a good place to start. It's basically a trash fish that's been genetically altered to be suitable for large scale farming. Like the soylent green of aquaculture. That being said, we eat it all the time as it's cheap and it's great for things like (as Dave mentioned) fish tacos and a quick pan fry. I'd check it after an hour. It should take well to smoke but it doesn't really have much flavor on its own, so it might be easy to overdo it. For a frame of reference, we cook it in the oven at 400˚ for 15-17 minutes and it's usually perfectly done without drying out. Just realized Leah said basically the same thing, so at least I seem to have remembered the numbers right :)

 

[geerock]

You hit the nail on the head about tilapia, boatbum. Unfortunately it fits the idea of fish for most new generation Americans.... light colored flesh with very little taste. They are really from middle eastern seas but have become a genetically altered creature that that will swim in very close proximity, eat almost anything, survive and swim in water that is basically composed of a great amount their own waste combined with liquid oxygen injection, and can grow from fingerling to market size in less than 5 months. To me its like eating artificial crab, there's no crab! Except this really is a fish that has been altered to NOT taste like fish. But it markets well in the US.

BTW boatbum....did you find your smoker?

 

[guruatbol]

I don't care for tilapia. If I am buying cheap, I get Swai. It is an Asian catfish.

I like to take all my fish and do two things.

1- soak in Italian salad dressing, usually home made, for 1/2 hour or so and grill until done to your preference. I like mine what people say is over done.

2- grilled on a hot flame on a wet cedar plank until done.

Tilapia was grown a few miles from where we lived in CA and when we got it, it was pretty fresh. Still moving normally.

I hope this helps. Oh, my youngest daughter hates fish. We told her some yellowtail cooked like #1 was chicken. She ate two portions.

Mel

Sent from my DROID RAZR HD using Tapatalk 2

 

[shrimp nasty]

Thanks for all the input. Good and bad came out of my little smoking experience. Bad thing is, I still don't like seafood. I never have and probably never will, it all just tastes the same to me.

Good news however, I don't think it could've come out much better. I went a little heavy on the seasoning but exactly 1 hour in the MES at 220 had it come out just the way the wife likes it. I did make a little foil boat for it so it wouldn't fall through the grates, but it was open on the top.

I threw on some potatoes since it was up and running which may be my new favorite way to eat those. Meat wise, I think I'll stick to pork and chicken.

Ya'll have a good new year.

Cheers

Shrimp

 

[geerock]

One thing you might find comes in handy for fish, and other things.....AMAZN MATS, FROG MATS, something along that line. Great for fish, nasty shrimp, wings, jerky, etc.