Tilapia

Breaded fish is one of our favorites. The richness of pine nuts nicely balances the lemon and herbs to make an irresistible dish. Use just about any fish: flounder, salmon, tilapia, perch, cod, snapper, catfish.

A colorful trio of fresh fruits, coupled with the spiciness of jalapeño pepper, enlivens the flavor of mild tilapia.

Green spinach and red tomato contrast handsomely with white-flesh fillets in this dish. Microwave potatoes to round out the meal.

Tandoori is actually a cooking method, not an ingredient. In traditional Indian cuisine, the term describes a marinated meat cooked over an intense fire in a tandoor—a clay oven containing a hot fire. But we now commonly associate it with a type of marinade. Today, you can find tandoori paste in most grocery stores. It has intense flavor (which I love). By mixing it with yogurt, you cut some of the sodium and make a great simple marinade for fish, chicken, and many other meats.

I’ve encountered many people who are shocked that I eat real pork bacon, being that I’ve kept off fifty-five pounds for close to twenty years. Others are shocked that I include it in my cookbooks. The interesting thing to realize is that center-cut bacon—real pork bacon that’s 35 to 40 percent leaner than other pork bacon—is often as lean as most turkey bacon, yet it tastes like real bacon because it is. The flavor is much stronger than turkey bacon and doesn’t have that turkey aftertaste many brands of turkey bacon do. When buying fish, I often opt for frozen individually wrapped fillets. They’re usually fresher than those I find at the fish counter, and I buy them when they go on sale so I can always have some handy in my freezer.

Try halibut, mahi-mahi, or tilapia in this recipe, too. Leeks and bacon are so delish . . . add some fish and they become good for you, too.

A coating of herbed mayonnaise keeps the fish moist while it bakes.

Bengali Dahi Maach Tender pieces of tilapia are marinated with caraway seeds, turmeric, and cayenne pepper and then pan-fried until crisp and golden brown. The dish is finished with a yogurt curry enhanced by the spicy flavor of mustard seeds. The result is a great mixture of flavors and textures, and a simple way to prepare versatile tilapia.

A 4-ounce fillet of mild-tasting tilapia has only 108 calories.

Making a parchment envelope in which to steam a fillet of fish surrounded by aromatic vegetables may sound a bit fancy for just one, but cooking in parchment is actually one of the simplest and most effective ways of steaming, because it seals in the flavors. What a treat it is to have that golden-tinged, puffed-up half-moon of parchment on your plate, and then to tear it open and breathe in all the heady aromas. Moreover, you’ll have no cleanup afterward; just wipe off the Silpat mat and throw away the parchment after you’ve scraped and scooped up every last delicious morsel and its jus. If you want just one meal out of this, get about a 6-ounce fillet of flounder, halibut, salmon, red snapper—whatever looks good. Or, as I did recently, try tilapia, which is quite readily available these days and at a reasonable price. But bought almost twice the amount I needed, so I could play with the other half of the cooked fillet a couple of days later. I learned from Katy Sparks, whose book, Sparks in the Kitchen, is full of great cooking tips from a chef to the home cook, the trick of pre-roasting several slices of new potato so they can go in the parchment package. This way you have a complete, balanced meal-in-one cooked all together.

This light fish entrée gets a flavor boost from a citrus glaze made from fresh lemon juice, orange juice, and fresh ginger. For stronger, more acidic flavor, add lemon zest and additional juice. Make sure to use a high-quality 100 percent orange juice that is freshly squeezed (not from concentrate).

Mild tilapia takes beautifully to a robust, smoky cilantro-chipotle sauce.

At street stalls, fish kebabs come in various forms, but when prepared at home, says Kiran Desai, they are not grilled on skewers but fried and served on plates with a little chutney drizzled on top.

Maneet Chauhan, chef at Vermilion in Chicago, uses nonfat yogurt to reduce calories but not taste.

Fish dish: Tori Amos's favorite recipe Chef Duncan Pickford shares his recipe for his client's preferred healthy dinner.

Prosciutto and sage add deep flavor to tilapia, which is a mild fish. Separating the two sides of the fillet helps to keep the thinner part from overcooking.

This Basque dish is essentially a fish pâté or pudding, called budíns in Spain.