Basque Fish

I eat fish of some sort every single day, it's a great lean protein source and is typically very quick and easy to prepare. I eat a lot of tilapia because it's inexpensive and it takes on the flavor of whatever spice you cook it with.

This is what I call Basque Fish, I made it up...as usual. I do have a good reason for calling it Basque Fish, it's based on the spices found in typical Basque Cuisine and it reminds me of the Basque food I had when visiting my brother in Spain a few times. 

Above I have my 1:00 meal (lunch #2 as David calls it). Fish and asparagus. It's great with fresh lemon squeezed over it too!

I came up with this as I usually do by using the ingredients I had on hand, which happened to be a lot of very ripe tomatoes. Red ones and yellow ones. I lined a baking dish with foil then laid the tilapia filets on top. I roughly chopped the tomatoes and put them all over the fish then a very generous amount of smokey Spanish paprika (I like agri-dulce otherwise known as bittersweet).

Baked uncovered in a 400 degree oven for 20 minutes (test a piece by flaking into it, it should be firm yet still moist, not raw or squishy looking inside) and the tomatoes released juices and mingled with the fish, the paprika melted into the tomatoes and a wonderful sauce was created.

Another view, you can see some of the browed bits on top where the tomatoes caramelized. 

Here I am eating it with cauliflower. It goes well with any vegetable as long as it is a plain one (no other sauce).


This is great even at room temperature, but then I can eat just about anything at room temperature these days...


You can always add some black olives if you want a bit more flavor, I would use Kalamata (Greek) not pitted black California, they have absolutely no flavor! Remember that olives are "fat pellets" though, calorie dense so if you are watching your weight, leave them out.