Blackened Grilled Tilapia with Pineapple Salad

This was another tilapia dish and another recipe by Atul Kochhar. Looking back over the past few weeks, it seems we've been having a bit of tilapia lately. It's a good fish.

This recipe was good, but didn't seem to be as much of a knockout as the other stuff we've done by Chef Kochhar. Granted, the recipe was written to use a whole scaled tilapia, broiled in the oven. I only had fillets, so I pan fried them. That, and I am not sure I seasoned the fish enough before cooking it. I'll have to play with this one a bit to see what happened.

FISH
4x400 g tilapia, cleaned

TAMARIND GLAZE
1 teaspoon cumin seeds
1 teaspoon coriander seeds
1 teaspoon fennel seeds
6-8 garlic cloves, sliced, deep-fried in hot oil until golden and then crushed in a mortar and pestle
4 tablespoons tamarind pulp
2 tablespoons vegetable oil
1 tablespoon brown sugar
½ teaspoon red chilli powder
1 teaspoon GINGER PASTE
sea salt

PINEAPPLE SALAD
1 tablespoon vegetable oil
1 teaspoon mustard seeds
200 g pineapple, diced
1 red chile, sliced
1 pinch turmeric
juice and grated zest of 1 lime
10 large mint leaves, chopped
1 pinch sugar
sea salt and freshly ground black pepper

First make the tamarind glaze. Toast all the seeds in a dry frying pan and then grind them to a powder. Put the seeds in a pan with all the remaining glaze ingredients and bring to a simmer. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mixture becomes a thick paste and is shiny on the surface.

For the salad, heat the oil in a pan over a medium heat and add the mustard seeds. When they start to pop, add all the rest of the ingredients and cook for a couple of minutes. Remove from the heat and leave to cool.

Make 3 diagonal slashes on both sides of each fish and then brush with the tamarind glaze. Place under a very hot grill and cook for 2-3 minutes on each side, until just done. Serve with the pineapple salad.