Almond and Parmesan Crusted Tilapia

Several years ago, we tried tilapia and found that it was a pretty tasty fish. Most of the time, I would coat it with olive oil on both sides, add salt and pepper and bake in the oven and serve it with lemon wedges. We occasionally tried it with fish breading and baked until browned, which was also quite tasty. Lately I have been experimenting with toppings on the fish before baking. A couple of weeks ago, I decided to take a few almonds and finely chop them in our food chopper and cover the top of the fish with it after the salt and pepper. The next time I added parmesan cheese on top of the almonds. This time I added another ingredient. I sprinkled basil on the fish after the salt and pepper, but before the almonds. This is what it looked like before it went into the oven.
We had the fish with brown rice and broccoli as shown here.
The following is how the above fish was prepared:
-Thaw fish if frozen.
-Rinse and dry the fish (I use a paper towel.
-Pour olive oil into the baking dish and coat both sides of the fish with the oil.
-Add salt and pepper.
-Sprinkle basil on the fish.
-Spread finely chopped almonds over the fish. I chopped 6 large almonds per piece of fish.
-Sprinkle parmesan cheese over the entire fish to partially cover the almond crumbs.
-Bake in oven at 475 for 15 minutes until browned. I did this in the convection oven. A conventional oven might take a little longer. I believe the fish was actually done after about 10 minutes, but I wanted to get the almonds and parmesan cheese browned and slightly crusty.
-Serve with a lemon wedge squeezed over the fish.

I liked it a lot with the basil added, but I also liked it just as much without the basil. It’s good either way. The almonds and parmesan cheese make this quite a bit tastier than the way I used to make it. I highly recommend it.