Make fish, not love...

Today I decided to go with a new recipe. Every now and then I’ve written about food, and it usually involves some earlier story about a food article we’ve done, but today I’ve decided to go with a new one. This was last night’s dinner, made up from a novel reference.

In a recent James Patterson novel (I have no idea what the name is) that I'm listening to on my MP3 player in the car, one of the characters makes a dinner for his girlfriend, a Crabmeat Stuffed Tilapia. He tells her that he can prepare it, put it in the oven, and they can have forty five minutes to make love, and the dinner will be ready.

Now any cook would know that any tilapia dish made in an oven for forty five minutes would be like a fish brick. I loved the sound of the dish, but knew the writer didn't research the recipe a bit. It had little to do with the story and he probably didn’t care. For me, I can’t remember the name of the book, but can remember the food item. It says much about the writer, and me.

I read through a number of crab meat stuffed tilapia recipes on the internet and realized that any boy from Baltimore knows more about crab than the food writers ever will. So I went with the combination of recipes and my gut instinct. This is not rocket science.

Crabmeat Suffed Tilapia

Ingredients: (This is for two people, not the usual four)

2 tilapia filets about 6 ounces each (170 grams)

1/3 lb. fresh crab meat (fresh if possible)

1 stalk celery

1 small onion

1-2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley (or dried if needed)

2 tbs. butter

½ cup bread crumbs (I used whole wheat I made myself)

1 tbs. lemon juice

1 teas. Old Bay Seafood Seasoning (I guess you could use 1/4 teas. cayenne if you have no access to Old Bay, but a boy from Baltimore always has his Old Bay)

Sprinkle of paprika

Instructions:

Chop the onion and the celery into fine pieces
Sauté in a small skillet, with some butter, until softened

Chop the parsley and add to the onions and celery

Remove from the heat and add crab meat, bread crumbs, lemon juice and the Old Bay (or cayenne) and mix together very well

Form the mixture into two large crab oval crab cakes and place on a greased baking dish

Place a tilapia filet on top of each

Dot fish with butter and sprinkle on the paprika

Put in a 400 degree oven for 15-20 minutes (mine was done in 15 minutes in a convection oven)

Serve on plate with lemon wedges (and anything else you'd like to add)

Serve with a smile, but make love before or after, there is not enough time while baking.