Tilapia with capers and brown butter lemon sauce

This is a bastardized version of the French sole a la meuniere- sole in the style of the miller’s wife, so named after the use of the flour. I am not using sole for this dish since I find tilapia fillets are cheaper and also very delicately flavored. 

The stars of this dish are the tangy capers and the browned butter. In french, browned butter is called buerre noisette, which translates literally to hazelnut butter. As usual, the french have insight to food; butter does develop lovely nutty flavors as the milk solids brown. The trick is to avoid burning those milk solids- no one likes blackened butter. Watch the butter carefully and just as it begins to turn brown, remove it from the heat and hit it with the final ingredients to instantly cool the sauce and stop the cooking process. 

I like to serve this on top of couscous to absorb the extra sauce, but it would be lovely on rice or with a chewy baguette as well. Bon appetit!

Ingredients:

2 fillets of tilapia

1/2 cup of flour

1/2 teaspoon salt

pepper, to taste

1 tablespoon grapeseed oil

Juice of 1/2 lemon

2 tablespoons butter

1 tablespoon capers

Method:

Mix together the flour, salt and pepper. Dredge the fillets of tilapia in the flour, tapping off any excess.

Meanwhile, preheat a large skillet over medium high heat. Add the oil and add the fish once the oil shimmers. Fry for 2 minutes each side, then remove the fish and wrap in foil to keep warm.

Turn the heat down to medium low, and add the butter. Cook the butter until it just browns, and shut off the heat. Add the lemon juice and capers to halt the browning of the butter (you don’t want it to burn!). Drizzle the butter and caper sauce over the fish. Enjoy!