Parmesan Tilapia Roll-Ups

Wow, another Paula Deen recipe without a picture, that makes two in a row.  I guess after my success with the Tilapia in Corrie’s Lemony, Buttery Baked Fish, I was looking for another recipe to try tilapia and thought this recipe sounded good.  How could you not love the ingredients in the Parmesan Tilapia Roll-Ups (page 155) of fish, parmesan cheese, and garlic!

On my last trip to Costco, I found they were out of fresh tilapia so I purchased a package of frozen tilapia.  Two days before I wanted to cook this recipe, I took four of the eight individual packages out of the bag in the freezer and placed them on a plate in our refrigerator to thaw. 

When it was time to cook, I removed the thawed tilapia from the refrigerator and cut the ends off the plastic wrap holding the fish.  I slid each fish fillet out of it’s tube onto a plate covered in paper towel.  These fillets had a very firm texture and had just the right amount of moisture without being covered with liquid.

Next, I prepared the sauce.  The recipe calls for eight fish fillets and I only was using four, so I halved the quantity for each ingredient.  The recipe calls for light mayonnaise but I just used one-quarter cup of standard strength mayo.  I approximated the one ounce of parmesan cheese that I grated into the mayonnaise.  I chopped two small cloves of garlic and about five sprigs of fresh parsley then mixed al the ingredients together into a very creamy (and because of the garlic) and potent sauce.

Now I encounter a problem: the tilapia is to be rolled with the sauce in the middle, but each fillet was about two inches wide and three fourths of an inch thick.  There was no way I would be able to roll this fish!  I solved this by slicing each tilapia fillet from the edge and butter flying each fillet.  Now there are four wide and thin fillets of tilapia

I placed each tilapia fillet on my trusty Bakers Secret cookie sheet and placed one fourth of the sauce mixture at the end of each fillet.  I rolled each fillet from the sauce end to make a rollup with the sauce in the middle.  I stuck two toothpicks into each roll to hold it in shape while cooking and then dabbed each roll on the outside with a little olive oil to keep the outside of the fish soft

The cookie sheet and the fish went into the bottom oven or our range where I baked the fish for about twelve minutes and they came out looking great and smelling wonderful!

I completed each plate with some steamed broccoli and some raw sliced carrots.  My wife thought we should add some color to the fish to make it stand out on the plate for the photo, so she sprinkled on a little paprika.  (We now have some nice red plates, but we didn’t get a chance to wash them for this meal.)

This meal was wonderful!  I give it a ranking of ten out of ten.  The fish was light and cooked to perfection.  The sauce in the middle made an excellent sauce and really enhanced the flavor of the dish.

I will be serving this recipe again!