Tilapia with Sauteed Mushrooms
Test Recipe: Tilapia with Sautéed Mushrooms (Ca Sao Nem) from Ha Roda’s A Vietnamese Kitchen.
Ingredients list: 2 tablespoons butter, 1 teaspoon minced garlic, 1 tilapia fillet (1 to 2 pounds), 4 ounces fresh sliced mushrooms, 1 onion sliced into 12 wedges, 1 tomato sliced into 12 wedges, 1/2 teaspoon salt, 1/8 teaspoon black pepper, 1 lemon wedge.
Directions: “Melt the butter in a frying pan over medium-high heat. Add the garlic. Cook, stirring, until golden. Dry the fish and add it to the pan. Fry both sides for 2 minutes each or until golden. Transfer the fish to a serving plate.
“Add the mushrooms, onion, tomato, salt, and pepper to the remaining butter. Stir-fry for 2 more minutes or until lightly golden.”
“Remove from the heat. Squeeze the lemon and pour the sautéed mushroom (sic) over the fish. Serve with steamed rice, pasta, or bread.”
Well, it worked out all right in the end, but on the way there I had more than a few chances to worry as I pondered the skillet and its contents. The dish took longer than expected to cook, which meant that the garlic was mostly charred by the time the cooking was done. I substituted a flounder fillet for tilapia; it didn’t seem excessively thick but it took longer than two minutes on each side to cook through. When it was done and transferred to the serving plate, it left a prodigious amount of crust in the skillet. I briefly considered adding more butter, but then decided to let it be because the tomato, onion and mushrooms would produce their own liquid. I was not disappointed in that; the veggies produced enough liquid that the crust came off and cleanup was not an issue after all.
Given the difficulties in the cooking phase, I braced myself for a less-than-desirable result, but I was pleasantly surprised. The fish was great, with a crispy skin and flaky interior. The mushrooms took on an intense sweetness, almost citrus-like; maybe it was the combination of the butter and the lemon? The onion was mildly flavored and played off the tomato’s acidity nicely. Even the charred garlic and bits of fried fish crust from the pan added more interesting flavor notes to the dish; they actually enhanced the other ingredients (though I’m not sure that was the original intent of the recipe). The mild flavor of the fish counterbalanced the stronger flavors of the tomato and onion, so the whole ended up harmonizing well.
I suppose the cooking portion of the program might use some tweaking, but the result was good enough that the initial worries became minor annoyances (at best) by the time the meal hit the plate.
Rating: 6 out of 10.
