PAN-FRIED CRUSTED GROUPER
Ingredients
- 8 oz tilapia or grouper (or any mild boneless white fish)
- 1/4 cup parmesan bread crumbs
- 1 egg
- 1 tablespoon olive oil
Instructions
- Beat the egg in a medium bowl.
- Pour bread crumbs in a separate medium bowl.
- Dip the grouper in the egg and then dip in the bread crumbs.
- Heat olive oil in a skillet over medium heat.
- Cook the 2 to 3 minutes on each side, or until fish flakes easily with a fork.
- Enjoy!
Today has been crazy! I started the day off with my first physical therapy appointment to (finally) take care of my back problem (which I'm learning is actually more of a hip problem). As soon as I got back home I got to work on my Operations Management homework. This prof. loves giving ridiculous HW assignments so after six hours of working on it (ugh) it was time to make dinner. I have to admit I really, really wanted to cheat and throw some chicken nuggets in the toaster oven for the kids. But I didn't. My parental guilt stopped me. So I looked through the Pinterest recipes and opted for a Parmesan Crusted Tilapia recipe - sort of. When I went to buy tilapia the other day I was less than impressed with the selection so I went with a nice wild caught Mexican grouper. It was only good until tomorrow so if I was going to cook it, tonight was the night. The Pinterest recipe was doomed from the start. First of all, I didn't have any Panko. I could have sworn I did, but I didn't. I opted instead to use some bread crumbs I had on hand. The second problem was that I decided to start cooking while I was on the phone with my mom. I got half way through preparing the ingredients when I realized I mixed everything together. If you've ever crusted anything, you know you have to dip it in egg first. I was really bummed because I had used my last bit of shredded Emmentaler (which is basically the Swiss version of Parmesan cheese IMO). My mom piped in with "you don't need to add Parmesan cheese. All it does is make it crispier. It doesn't add extra flavor." I was hesitant until I realized the bread crumbs I was using were Progresso's Italian Parmesan Bread Crumbs. Hmmmm... maybe the meal was saved. I decided to forge ahead with what I had. The results?
One of the things you should know about my daughter is she is an extremely picky eater. As soon as I set the plate down she said "Ewwww... I don't like that. What is it?" I convinced her it was fish sticks so she reluctantly took a bite. As you can see, she cleaned her plate. When I asked if I should add it to our menu I got an enthusiastic "yes." Score one for mom for sneaking fish into the rotation!
There are two really awesome things about this meal: from start to finish it took less than 10 minutes (less time than chicken nuggets) and there are only 4 ingredients. Add that to the Princess' two thumbs up and I'd say this dinner was a solid 10!
