Food, Glorious Food!

Yesterday and today I've cooked dinner - yesterday for three and today for six. I'm tired now, but happy that it all seems to have gone down well (pardon the pun).

Tilapia en Papillote
Strictly speaking this should be something like Tilapia en AluFolie, but I can't remember the French word for AluFolie, and anyhow, it wouldn't sound anything like as elegant as the title, so I'm leaving it!

I had to feed my son and wife, so three tilapia fillets were sufficient (I get them individually wrapped and frozen from BJs in six-packs). That's really for two reasons - cost and sloth! I'm getting mean and lazy in my old age - !

Anyhow, tear off three pieces of aluminium foil each large enough to wrap a fillet in, lay them down on a flat surface, and put a fillet in the middle of each. Drop a knob of butter on each and some salt and pepper. Pop on some chopped onion, and whatever other herbs you feel like, all sparingly. I put in garlic and some chive. For me alone some dill (the AG's not keen on it).

Then fold up the foil around the fish, so that you've made walls all around it (important, this, as the butter will melt and run! Now fold the walls in gently over the fish, lowest wall first to make an envelope. Pick up the now-encased fish and place it onto a cookie tray or similar to cook. I cook them at about 350F for about 15 minutes - you know that they're done because there's suddenly a wonderful smell of cooked fish from the kitchen!

I served this with couscous, which took all of five minutes to cook, so it waited almost ten for the fish, which is about right. I put about a third of a stick of butter in a pot, melted it on low heat, added almost three cups of couscous (yes, we have some left over!) and stirred well for a minute or so, to let it get hot. Then I added between a half and three-quarters of a cup of chicken stock and stirred that in very well, so that every piece of the wheat got to see its own liquid! I fluffed it up a couple of times while waiting for the fish, and then served the couscous in the pot and the fish in their foil. There's a fair amount of liquid with the fish, which helps moisten the couscous for eating. During cooking it also makes sure that the fish stays moist and doesn't dry out, so you should get nice succulent fish to eat.

I'm tired and going to bed, so I'll edit and finish this tomorrow.

TTFN