Spicy Baked Swai

To further expand my venture into fish cooking, I recently picked up some swai and flounder.  I'd worked with salmon, tilapia, shrimp, and most recently, I made Sake Flounder.  Since I'm fairly new to seafood in general, I really didn't know what swai was, but decided to give it a try with a spicy sauce.



I did a bit of research before cooking with it, and after browsing all kinds of sites with both negative and positive insights, I found out it is a type of shark catfish from Vietnam.  There was a significant amount of somewhat intimidating information I came across that upon first read made swai sound dangerous.  Of course, you can't believe everything you read, so I did some further digging and learned it is mostly hype.

I decided to go with a Seasoned Swai recipe that had some good reviews from other cooks.  I rinsed the thawed fillets out and set them up in a baking dish sprayed with olive oil.

I made the sauce on the stove top by melting butter over medium heat. I then stirred in white wine, lemon juice, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, and crushed red pepper and continued cooking it for about 2-3 minutes. The original recipe called for fresh cilantro, but since I just picked up a new parsley plant I swapped it out.  In addition, I added a small amount of crushed red pepper and instead of sprinkling the paprika on fillets, mixed it in the sauce.

Next, I spread the sauce over the fillets and popped them in the oven.

While the fillets baked, I made some white rice to serve with it.  The swai baked for about 14 minutes.  I wanted to be sure they were cooked throughout, so I waited until the fish was flaky to remove them from the oven.

And the finished dish!

The Swai itself had a good taste; it was a moist fish and did not have an overwhelming fishy flavor. It was very filling and went perfect served with rice. Now, the sauce was good; it had a bit of spice but had way too much of a pepper flavor.  Next time, I will have to cut back significantly on the black pepper--maybe to 1/2 teaspoon or even 1/4.  I still have a couple of fillets left to work with, so pan-seared or fried Swai may be next.

Spicy Baked Swai Recipe

Ingredients:

2 Swai fillets
2 tablespoons butter
2 tablespoons white wine
1 tablespoon lemon juice
1 tablespoon chopped fresh parsley
1 teaspoon minced garlic
1 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon pepper
1 teaspoon paprika
1/2 teaspoon crushed red pepper

Instructions:

Heat oven to 350 degrees F. Rinse Swai fillets and place in a shallow baking dish sprayed with nonstick cooking spray or olive oil. In a small saucepan, melt butter over medium heat. Stir in white wine, lemon juice, parsley, garlic, salt, pepper, paprika, and crushed red pepper and continue cooking for 2-3 minutes, stirring constantly. Spread sauce over fillets and bake for 12-14 minutes, until fish easily flakes apart with a fork.