baked tilapia in smoked bacon with rosemary

I bet there are some of you out there who were expecting my next post to be beet cake. Sadly, the beet cake is in a big black garbage bag on my back deck, waiting for tomorrow's garbage pick-up. What went wrong? Well, I'll save those fascinating details for when I'm able to successfully write a post about beet cake. I will succeed if it is the last thing I do!

I found myself relatively near to Atwater market today and escaped with bags bursting with baby zucchini, patty-pan squash and red chiles. There's just something exciting about tiny vegetables. They remind me of French restaurants. I also left with wood-smoked bacon and tilapia - there's a recipe for cod in Jamie's Food Revolution that I've been dying to make for ages and, given that tilapia was going for a good price at the fish market, I decided to try it out with that.

It was pretty amazing. I mean, look at it. The bacon was of good quality and it added a whole other dimension to the fish. The rosemary was gorgeous and fragrant. The pepper gave the whole thing a kick. The flavour combination was magical and the recipe quick and easy. Even though I have a massive crush on Jamie Oliver, he and I don't always see eye-to-eye. Here, we were in complete agreement, aside from one little tweak: Jamie calls for four slices of bacon, but I felt as if that was too much, especially given that my fish filet was flatter than the one pictured in the book. I used three, and you could certainly get way with two.

baked tilapia in smoked bacon with rosemary
Adapted from Jamie's Food Revolution.
serves 2

2 filets of tilapia (we had approximately 1 pound total fish)
olive oil (I used 2 tablespoons, but it's not fixed)
4 sprigs of rosemary
salt and pepper to taste
6 slices of good quality bacon (get it from a butcher if you can)
1/2 a lemon, cut into wedges for squeezing

• Preheat oven to 475ºF and line a baking tray with foil.
• On a plastic cutting board, pick the leaves from 2 of the rosemary sprigs and chop them. Sprinkle them with salt and pepper, then drizzle with olive oil. Mix everything together on the board.
• Dredge your fish filets in the olive oil mixture and rub them well to coat.
• Lay 3 bacon strips down next to each other on your board. Place a tilapia filet over them crosswise. Wrap the bacon over the filet and top with a whole rosemary sprig. Drizzle rosemary with a small amount of olive oil. Repeat for the second filet.
• Place filets on baking tray and bake for approximately 15 minutes, or until bacon is golden and crispy around the edges. Serve immediately with lemon wedges for squeezing.