Poor Man's Lobster

Poor Man's Lobster is a staple meal in our house. We love it. It's a recipe I got from my mother-in-law, and I could eat it weekly. Seriously, I could. And it's so simple to make.

The dish calls for a white fish and, after you've boiled it in a vinegar mixture and then broiled it in butter and paprika, creates a taste that is sweet and succulent like lobster. It obviously isn't lobster, but it's an excellent substitute when you are no where near lobster.

You can use any sort of "white" fish--cod, tilapia, whiting, etc. You can also use as many fillets as you want, you'll just need to adjust seasonings. I always try to have a big bag of frozen fish (you know, the economy size you can get at Wal-Mart or Aldi?). They usually have each fillet in their own individual package. So, you could easily make this meal for 1-2 people or make enough for 6-8. Totally up to you. Okay, let's get started.

Here's the ingredients:

4 fillets of tilapia (what I had in the freezer), 1 stick of butter, paprika, 3 Tbsp of either white or red wine vinegar (I used white this time), and 2 tsp of salt.

In a large pot, start boiling 2 cups of water. Also, turn your oven on to broil.


Add 3 Tbsp of white wine vinegar (or red wine vinegar if you like, I've done both and they both taste fine).


Then add 2 tsp. of salt.


Stir together and make sure that the heat is on high. (Dude, look at how my burner looks purple!)


Once the liquid mixture has started to boil, you're going to put the fish fillets. Now, I normally don't thaw my fillets, but you can if you want to. Turn the heat down to medium-high heat so the fish are simmering in the liquid mixture. Simmer until the liquid is almost all evaporated or until the fish are cooked through.


My liquid wasn't all the way gone, but my fish was definitely cooked through. Take the fish out and put them in a baking dish.


Now, you can arrange your fish in a more pretty manner then I did. But, I had a baby screaming at me to be fed gingerbread cookies, and I wasn't going for beauty that night.


Melt half a stick of butter in a microwave safe dish. Pour the butter on the fish. Now, you can use more butter if you want, but we like half a stick. Too much more and it's sweeter then I can handle. Obviously, if you're using more fillets of fish, you'll want to use more butter.


Then sprinkle the paprika on. You can use as much as little as you like. Evan's favorite spice in the world is paprika, so I usually put it on pretty heavy. Plus, I think it's pretty since we're dealing with so much white on the plate already.

Now, you're only going to put this in the oven on broil for 5 minutes. You're just browning the tops of the fish and getting that paprika and butter to really melt into the tilapia.

Done! Isn't it fantastic looking?!



We always eat ours on a bed of rice. We really, really, really like rice. But you could always have it with some noodles or just veggies.

Wouldn't some broccoli look good on the side? Yeah, I thought so too, but I had used all my broccoli on that stupid shepherd's pie, so instead I made roasted cauliflower, therefore making a very, very white plate. It was good, but a bright green vegetable would have been more pleasing to the eye.