What's For Dinner: Parmesan-Almond Crusted Tilapia

Up until Sunday afternoon, all I knew was that I wanted to make a tilapia dish for Easter dinner; I just didn't know exactly what kind of tilapia dish I wanted to make. Luckily, D's mom came to the rescue and emailed a recipe for Parmesan-Almond Crusted Tilapia. I tweaked the recipe slightly by cooking the fish in the oven rather than on the stove and nixing the extra Parmesan cheese; but I think the fish dish turned out rather well considering it was the first time I'd tried the recipe. Given that everyone was a member of the Clean Plate Club that evening, I'm going to have to assume that my guests would agree!

Parmesan-Almond Crusted Tilapia (printer-friendly version)

makes four servings

2 organic eggs

1 teaspoon lemon pepper

1 teaspoon garlic pepper

1 cup ground almonds

1 cup freshly grated Parmesan cheese

4 6-oz tilapia fillets

1/4 cup unbleached all-purpose flour

4 sprigs curly parsley

4 lemon wedges

1. Preheat the oven to 400 degrees.

2. Cover a baking sheet with aluminum foil and set aside.

3. Beat the eggs in a shallow bowl and set aside.

4. Mix together the lemon pepper, garlic pepper, and flour in a shallow baking dish and set aside. (Sense a theme?!)

5. Process the almonds in a food processor until finely ground. Place the ground almonds into a third(!) shallow baking dish. Stir in the grated Parmesan cheese.

6. Place a tilapia fillet in the flour mixture and dust both sides of the fish with the seasoned flour.

7. Dip the fillet in the egg mixture and allow any excess to drip off.

8. Dredge the eggy fillet in the almond-Parm mixture and coat evenly on both sides.

9. Place the seasoned fillet on the prepared baking sheet.

10. Repeat steps 6-9 for the remaining fillets.

11. Bake in the oven for 12-15 minutes or until the meat is opaque and flaky and the internal temperature reaches 140 degrees.

12. Place each fillet on a plate and garnish with a sprig of parsley and lemon wedge. Serve with sides of your choice -- we served our tilapia fillets with a side of string beans, red and white quinoa, and a mini caprese salad.