09 | March | 2016 | On the Menu @ Tangie's Kitchen

2 Comments March 9, 2016 Tangie Holifield

Growing up down South, one would encounter Piccadilly Restaurants, at one point in their lives. Piccadilly was first opened in Baton Rouge, Louisiana in 1944. Their cafeteria style menu still features a wide range of items with a focus on homestyle meals. As a kid, my family and I would often eat at Piccadilly after Sunday church services and my favorite meal was the fried fish and green beans with tartar sauce. Forget fish sticks, it was real fish. This recipe actually brings back a taste of my childhood, with this pretzel-crusted fish dish. The technique of breading fish in pretzels is derived from a French method called paner à l’anglaise, which refers to coating proteins with breadcrumbs. Once you try this variation with your favorite brand of pretzels, you probably wouldn’t want to have pan fried fish any other way. And the bonus, kids will love the crunchiness of pretzel coated fish.

Serves 2

Ingredients:
1 Tablespoon + 2 teaspoons olive oil
1 lemon, divided
2 cloves garlic
1/2 bunch fresh parsley, divided
3 scallions
10 ounces green beans
10 ounces tilapia
½ cup flour
1½ cups pretzels
2 Tablespoons butter
1 egg
Kosher salt, to taste
Ground black pepper, to taste
3 Tablespoons mayonnaise
½ Tablespoon horseradish
Lemon zest, for garnish
Directions:
Prepare Ingredients.Halve lemon. Mince garlic. Rinse remaining produce. Finely chop parsley leaves, discarding stems. Trim and discard scallion roots and cut on a diagonal into ¼-inch slices. Trim ends of green beans. Rinse tilapia and pat dry with paper towel.

Heat 1 tablespoon olive oil in a large nonstick pan over medium-high heat. When oil is shimmering, add scallions and green beans and sauté, stirring, until bright green and tender, 4 to 5 minutes. Add garlic and ½ of parsley and sauté until fragrant, 1-2 minutes. Stir in juice of ½ lemon. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed. Transfer to a plate and set aside.

Pour flour onto a large plate. Season with kosher salt and pepper as desired. In a large shallow bowl, beat 1 egg. Place the pretzels in a ziploc bag and seal.Using a mallet or rolling pin, crush the pretzels and pour onto a separate large plate. Dredge tilapia in flour, shaking off excess. Dredge in egg, allowing excess to drip off. Dredge in the pretzel crumbs, pressing to adhere.

Wipe pan from green beans clean and add butter and 1 teaspoon olive oil over medium heat. When butter is foamy, add tilapia in a single layer and sear without moving until crust is golden on bottom, 2 to 3 minutes. Flip, add another 1 teaspoon olive oil to pan, and sear until opaque, about 3 minutes more. Remove from pan and set aside.

While tilapia sears, make the horseradish sauce.Stir together mayonnaise, horseradish, juice of remaining ½ lemon, and remaining parsley in a medium bowl. Taste and add salt and pepper as needed.

To serve, place the tilapia on the plate and place the green beans alongside. Sprinkle a little of the lemon zest over the green beans for a nice garnish.Enjoy with horseradish sauce for dipping.

Cook’s Notes:
Crushing the pretzel as finely as possible will help them adhere to the fish. Your fish is finished cooking when it flakes easily with a fork.

1 Comment March 9, 2016 Tangie Holifield

This cake is chocolate heaven, even for those who are self-proclaimed beet-haters! A marvelous cake that is so moist and delicious, who would have ever known that the secret ingredient just happened to be red beets! It’s a great recipe to sneak in a few veggies for children who will ask for a second piece, because it’s just that good.

Serves 16 to 20, depending on how thick the slice

Ingredients:
3 or 4 medium red beets
4 ounces unsweetened chocolate
1 cup vegetable oil
3 eggs
1 ¾ cups packed brown sugar
1 Tablespoon vanilla extract
2 cups all-purpose flour
½ cup unsweetened cocoa
2 teaspoons baking soda
¼ teaspoon salt

For the icing:
1/2 cup confectioners’ sugar
4 1/2 ounces Neufchâtel cheese, softemed
3 Tablespoons milk
1/2 teaspoon vanilla extract
beet juice (left over from above)
4 ounces dark chocolate – melted

Directions:
Cook the beets: in a saucepan, cover beets with water and boil 30 to 45 minutes. Remove the skin, quarter the beets and puree them in food processor with a little bit of the water they cooked in. You should end up with 2 cups of pureed cooked beets. Reserve the beet juice of for the icing.

Preheat the oven to 375°F. Lightly coat a 10-cup Bundt pan or tube pan with oil and dust with flour.

Combine the chocolate and oil in a Pyrex liquid measuring cup. Microwave on the defrost setting just until the chocolate melts. Note: Using a double boiler is the traditional way to melt chocolate is a microwave is not handy.

Combine the eggs and sugar in a large bowl and beat with an electric mixer until fluffy. Slowly beat in the oil and chocolate mixture, beets, and vanilla.

Whisk the flours and stir in the baking soda and salt. Gently stir the flour mixture into the egg and chocolate mixture just until the flour is mixed in. Pour batter into the prepared pan.

Bake until a toothpick inserted near the center comes out clean, about 40-45 minutes. Remove the pan from the oven and set it on a wire rack to cool for 30 minutes.

Carefully remove the cake from the pan and let cool on the rack.

While the cake is cooling, make the icing. In a medium bowl, add the Neufchâtel cheese and sugar and stir in the milk and the vanilla.Divide the icing in half and place the reserved icing in a second bowl. With the other half of the icing, add 1 to 2 tablespoons a beet juice to the icing. Note: the icing may be thickened with confectioners’ sugar or thinned with milk or the beet juice. Drizzle the white icing onto the cake and allow it to set, followed by the beet icing. Drizzle with the melted dark chocolate. Slice and serve individually on dessert plates.

Cook’s Notes:
If you want to forego without the dramatic icing and chocolate drizzles, just simply dust the cake with confectioners’ sugar.