Banana-Cashew Crusted Fish

Well after going through my boxes and bags of goodies I came up with the first dish. I guess I should say me and Alex came up with a dish because he came up with some good ideas in there, I just put it to work. We decided to take the dried bananas and cashews and grind them up and crust the fish and then saute. So then what to eat with it......hmm...thats the part that made us think. Nothing really sounded tropical. So I thought back to a recipe I make with sausage into meatballs and serve over rice with a pineapple chipotle chutney. So Alex remembered I had some pineapple chili sauce in the fridge so we could make that our sauce and eat over rice. So the dish was born!! Muuahahahaha!!........ok so its no Frankenstein.....but we were still excited.

Recipe:
4-8 fish filets
1/4c dried bananas
1/4c cashews
1t agave nectar or honey*
vegetable oil
1c cooked rice
1/2c pineapple chili sauce**

*Agave nectar is a natural sweetener from a Mexican plant that is also used to make tequila. It is more expensive but if you can find it on sale....I absolutely recommend it!

** I found this bottle at Big Lots. I make a regular sweet chili sauce used as a condiment to Asian cuisine. This sauce replaces some of the sugar with pineapple to give it a fruity sweetness. It was very delicious. I might try to make it one day in the future.

So first things first is you need to grind up your bananas and cahsews. And there is no need to buy seperate things of them if you have a tropical trail mix. I pulled out all the banana chips and about 1/4c of the cashews. If you have more fish you will need more of each item. 

 The first thing I did was put them in a ziploc bag and pound them with a meat mallet. This makes it easier on your food processor. Once you get your pieces broken down into large crumbs transfer the mixture to a small food processor. Whirl until the crumbs break down into smaller crumbs. It wont be like a powder when you are finished. But as long as they are small it will be okay

So we had originally thought of dredging the fish in the crumbs and then sauting. But what happened next was tragic. I heated my oil in my pan on medium high heat. The fish was thin and I wanted a quick cook on high heat to get good color. But the crumbs started to fall off and then burn in the hot oil. This permeated into the fish and the crumbs on those fish. So I scrapped that idea. Then I realized if I just did a quick cook on the fish lightly salted and made a hot crumb mixture it would work out better.

Directions:
In a large skillet heat vegetable oil in pan over medium heat. Salt fish and cook until done on both sides. Mine only took about 1 minute per side. Remove from pan.

In a smaller skillet over medium heat add cashew and banana crumbs and constantly stir so as not to burn. Add 1t of agave nectar to bring out the sweetness in the bananas. If you do not have agave nectar use honey. Once mixture is slightly sticky and warmed through remove from pan.

In a small pot heat up the chili sauce. You could also place in a bowl and microwave to get warm.

To plate: Put your rice in the middle of your plate. Top with sauted fish. Sprinkle some nut mixture over the fish and then dollop the chili sauce over everything.

This was a really good dish. I wasnt sure if it would be great or just okay. But inspiration was there and the whole dish came together in a matter of minutes. I think the best part was that I had cooked rice in the fridge so I didnt have to cook any! So I hope I did justice to this dish with my ingredients given. Hope to see what yall think about it!