Gluten Free Friday: Blue Corn Crusted Tilapia

How’s that for a pretentious name?  What these are, really, are purple fish sticks.  Which is either going to freak you out or make you think “Holy crap, what a great idea for kids!”, which is where my brain was when I made them.  See, fish sticks are a favorite of mine–and yeah, I mean the frozen, fried kind in a box.  It’s one of those things I’m probably not supposed to admit as a foodie.  But there it is, a shameful secret.  Of course they’re a big no no for the gluten intolerant and awful for your waistline, so perhaps not being able to have them isn’t ALL BAD.  But, you know, sometimes you just CRAVE fish sticks.  Which means, for us, MAKING THEM AT HOME.  I had already learned, at some point in the past, that corn chips make a really good breading for fish and chicken.  Keeps a good crunch when baked and is already lightly salted.  Well, I had some blue corn tortilla chips left over from a batch of nachos, so I opted to use it with some tilapia for dinner.  Hoo boy!  You should have SEEN THE LOOK on my husband’s face!  What are you feeding me, you crazy woman?  To which I said, “Just hush and eat it.  You’ll like it.”  And he did.

Ingredients:

  • 4 tilapia fillets cut into thick “sticks”
  • 1 egg, beaten
  • 2-3 oz. blue corn tortilla chips, crunched up in your food processor
  • seasoning of choice (I think I used a bit of salt, pepper, paprika and garlic powder)

Directions:

  1. Prep your cookie sheet and wire racks, spraying them with cooking spray.
  2. Set up your dredge station with one dish of egg, one dish of corn chip crumbs (don’t use them all at once or the whole lot will get gummy).
  3. Lightly season your fish on both sides with whatever you prefer.
  4. Dip in egg on both sides.
  5. Dip in the chips and press firmly so that the crumbs adhere.
  6. Lay on your wire racks.  Repeat for all the other fish.
  7. NOW, preheat your oven to 450 degrees.  I’m having you do this now because you need the fish to rest for a while and sort of harden.  It’ll be done by the time the oven’s preheating.
  8. Bake for 15 minutes.

Printable version.

2 thoughts on “Gluten Free Friday: Blue Corn Crusted Tilapia

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.