3-Step Fish with Lemon-Caper Sauce

I owe this recipe to Melissa D'Arabian. For those of you who may not know, she was the winner of Food Network's "The Next Food Network Star" a couple years ago. Her show is called "10 Dollar Dinners" and the show kind of grew on me......she does have some very neat recipes to offer.

She called this recipe "Fish Piccata." I call it my 3-Step Fish. Please note that I have added my own little twist to this recipe. I don't encourage plagiarism either!

The First Set of Needs:

1. Tilapia fillets or any similar bland fish that absorbs flavors well
2. All Purpose Flour jazzed up with salt, pepper, turmeric powder, cayenne pepper, italian seasoning (your choice of spices, really)
3. A pan
4. Cooking Oil

The Second Set of Needs- The Sauce:

1. Capers
2. Lemon juice
3. All Purpose Flour (optional)
4. Some white wine or broth, else just water
5. Salt, pepper

The 3 Step Fish:

1. Pour some cooking oil into your pan and get it going on the stove. The pan should be screaming-hot.
2. Salt and pepper the fish, dip in jazzed-up all purpose flour to coat the entire fillet, dust off extra flour.
3. Drop the fish into the heated oil in the pan. A couple minutes on one side and then flip it to brown the other side. DONE!

Coating the fish with all purpose flour

 Browning one side........

 Browning the other side

 Gorgeous fried fish waiting for that tangy sauce

The Lemon-Caper Sauce:

1. After frying all the fillets, keep the same pan going. Yes, there's going to be some stuff sticking to the pan- that's what we are looking for- all that yummy caramelized goodness. Pour in some white wine or broth or plain water and start stirring and scraping off all those tidbits (yep, deglazing is the term!).
2. Add some capers into this and right towards the end, add some lemon juice. Taste to check the salt etc.
3. Melissa leaves her sauce pretty thin, but I prefer a somewhat thicker sauce and so I add a couple teaspoons of all purpose flour (corn starch should work too, I suppose). One quick boil and ready to be served!

Mmm, the tangy lemon-caper sauce!

Spoon some of that awesome tangy lemon-caper sauce onto the fried fish and serve alongside some brown rice or spaghetti or anything really or if you are on that no-carb diet, eat the fish alone!

Fried Tilapia with lemon-caper sauce and some tortellini on the side

The fish is real easy to cook- I mean, 3 steps literally!! And you can't go wrong with fried fish! That lemon-caper sauce just explodes in your mouth with tangy deliciousness.

Thanks, Melissa D'Arabian!