Tortilla Chip Encrusted Tilapia

You're probably thinking that a lot of my recipes are for Mexican food, but in all honesty, Matt and I eat Mexican food probably about 3 or 4 times a week! Even tonight, I plan on making pork taquitos! Ha, ha! Needless to say, it's one of our favorite types of food. This recipe I thought was quite clever because it uses something we all have at one time or another...stale tortilla chips! I hate biting into a chip expecting it to be crisp and instead it has that brittle crunch to it. Yuck! But now, I will no longer throw away a stale bag of tortilla chips, instead I will make this! :) When you eat this, you can't even tell that the chips were stale. It's a great way to use old chips, but of course, you can use fresh chips, too. Here's what I did...

-tilapia fillets (one per person)
-1 and 1/2 cups of crushed tortilla chips (the easiest way to crush them is to put them in a plastic bag and seal it. Make sure to get all of the air out of the bag. Then take a rolling pin and run it over the bag in all directions until the chips are finely crushed.)
-2 limes, zested (after zesting, cut the limes into wedges and reserve.)
-1 cup of flour
-2 eggs
-1 TBS ancho chili powder (or any regular chili powder that you have on hand)
-1 TBS smoked paprika (or regular paprika)
-2 tsp ground coriander
-1 tsp onion powder
-a heavy pinch of salt
-a small handful of cilantro, chopped

The first thing to do is set up your breading station. You need 3 wide and shallow bowls. In the first one, add in the flour. In the second one, beat the eggs. In the third bowl, add the crushed tortilla chips, lime zest, spices (no need to measure exactly, just eyeball it), salt and cilantro. Toss to distribute the spices and zest evenly. (Anytime you bread something, this is how you should do it. First the flour, then egg, then breading. The flour sticks to the meat and helps the egg stick to the flour, which then helps the breading to stick to the egg.) Before you begin breading, take a paper towel and dab the fish dry. Take a piece of fish and coat it in a thin layer of flour and shake off the excess. Then run the fish through the egg and finally into the tortilla chip mixture. Press the fish firmly into the chip mixture to make sure it sticks well to the fish. Transfer to a plate or cookie sheet. Repeat the breading process until all of your fillets are breaded. Let the fillets sit for 5-10 minutes. This lets the breading dry out a little so that all the layers will stick together. Meanwhile, heat 2-3 TBS of olive oil in a saute pan over medium heat. Without crowding, fry the tilapia fillets about 3-4 minutes per side. When you flip the fish over to the second side, you may need to add a little more olive oil, you can be the judge of that. When the fillets come out of the pan, squeeze them with the reserved lime wedges. Serve with beans and spanish rice.

This is a good alternative to something wrapped in a tortilla. Don't get me wrong, I love me a good tortilla, but I thought I would change it up for ya! Oh, and if you don't like the flavor of tilapia, this will work with any other flaky white fish, but the cooking times will vary if it's any thicker than a tilapia fillet. Let me know what you think of it! Enjoy!