Tilapia comes in different breeds and various colors, including black and white, green, silver, or red. Most tilapia are exported live or as fresh fillets. Indonesian, Thai, and Taiwanese farmers export frozen tilapia to the United States. This fish is widely farmed so it tends to be available year-round.

You can bake, broil, grill, or steam tilapia. You can also use it in stir-fry recipes or pan-fry it. This versatile and flavorful fish is one of the most popular fish that you can get. A red-skinned tilapia might have pink flesh but most tilapia have white flesh. The flavor of the fish can be described as mild, sweet and rather like sole. You can serve tilapia with the skin on because it is attractive, but do not eat the skin because it has a bitter flavor.

How to Choose and Prepare Tilapia Fillets

When buying fresh tilapia, choose moist-looking fish, which is layered in ice. Do not buy tilapia, which has a musky smell. Also, tilapia absorbs the flavor of the water it is raised in so check the harvest methods and source.

Tilapia keeps for two weeks at 32 degrees F. If you cannot get live or fresh tilapia, choose “IQF” (individually quick-frozen) tilapia. This is where the fillets are not stuck together in the packaging. Tilapia keeps well in the freezer for up to six months.

Before cooking tilapia, it is important to clean it well, inside and outside. This means rinsing the fish well under cold running water, as well as removing all traces of the internal organs. You can then cook the whole fish or individual fillets.

How to Cook Tilapia

Thoroughly clean your tilapia fillets and dredge them in beaten egg. Dip the egg-coated tilapia in breadcrumbs and bake it for half an hour in a 360 degrees F oven. You can use parmesan instead of the breadcrumbs or even seasoned flour. Add some chili powder and cayenne pepper to the flour for a spicy kick.

You can steam tilapia in about twelve minutes. To cook a whole tilapia using this healthy cooking method, you should remove as many of the fish scales as you can. Remove the organs and insides from the fish, and then steam it until it flakes easily and is opaque. You can pan fry tilapia fillets in oil or butter for a quick and easy meal, and this takes two or three minutes per side.

If you would rather grill the fish, choose inch thick tilapia fillets and rub a light coating of oil over both sides. Preheat the grill to medium and coat the grill rack with nonstick cooking spray. Tilapia takes about ten minutes to grill to perfection. It takes half that time if you place it directly on the grill.

When the meat is white and opaque and the juices are clear, it is ready to serve. Try wrapping tilapia fillets in aluminum foil with white wine, butter, lemon juice, and julienne-cut vegetables for a delicious summer dinner or cook it directly over a hot grill, with spices rubbed into it, for a tasty blackened tilapia recipe.

Since tilapia is one of the most popular fish you can get, you will find plenty of tips for cooking it on food blogs. Tilapia is delicious, healthy and versatile and you can use a recipe search engine to find the perfect tilapia recipe for dinner tonight.

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The reason for this is simple: so many people with connections to the restaurant business in their home country come to Bali and like it so much that they wonder about transplanting themselves and their culinary skills to paradise here. This is not to say that starting a restaurant in Bali would be an easy task. On the contrary, competition is so fierce among restauranteur ex-pats that I’ve always believed one is much better off being a customer in Bali rather than a restaurant owner!

Bali offers first-class Western eating. The prices and the variety here is stunning. You will find Italian food, French cuisine, Greek food, Moroccan food, Spanish tapas, very good Japanese, Mexican food and Middle Eastern food, Chinese, etc., etc. If you’d just like a steak, no problem! There is sublime vegetarian food in Bali, both in the Seminyak area and also in Ubud. Whatever your preference, it’s here.

An interesting thing that did not occur to me until I had lived in Bali for a little while is that this same phenomenon of outsiders coming to Bali to create restaurants also happens with Indonesians coming from other islands and bringing their cuisines to share. There is wonderful Indonesian food in Bali from all over the Indonesian archipelago. You might be surprised at how varied Indonesian cuisine is, and you can make use of your Bali holiday to enjoy a breathtaking array of regional fare. From extremely spicy to very, very mild, Indonesian cuisine benefits from the country’s location straddling the equator. You find amazing fruits and vegetables, many of which might be unfamiliar to you, but all of which are worth a try! Certainly the seafood is a high point as well.

By the way, all this is not to say that Balinese food isn’t wonderful. Especially noteworthy is the ‘Babi Guling’, if you are a pork lover. It is a slow-cooked suckling pig dish that traveling chef Anthony Bordain claimed was the very best pork he’d ever had in his life!

I will offer a final tip on eating in Bali: don’t be afraid to get a little bit adventurous when it comes to eating here. While you will find the familiar fast food franchises that you know from back home, I always think it is a shame when I see hordes of people in front of McSuperBurger or everyone’s KidsFavoriteFriedChicken franchise (yes they are in Bali). Unlike some parts of Asia, the hygiene generally very good in Bali restaurants, especially in the tourist areas.

Compared to Western fast food joints, you can actually find cheaper meals at good Bali restaurants that offer a dining experience as pleasurable as some of your favorite restaurants back home, for a small fraction of the price. It is hard to believe sometimes how good value for money is when it comes to eating in Bali, and whatever you’re hungry for you’ll find it here at an amazing price.

Look forward to your meals in Bali, because eating here will really be a high point of your holiday. Don’t miss some of the excellent Seminyak restaurants on Jalan Oberoi and Jalan Nakula; and if you’re looking for vegan or vegetarian food Bali has plenty of choices for you.

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