Tilapia, fruit of the sea?

I have had a craving stuck in my head for a few months now. It is very specific. I can see it, almost perfectly in my mind. It is a nice fat fish, head and all, stuffed full of, well... stuff... and wonderfully crispy from the grill.

I just can't remember where I saw it.

I have been rather unsuccessfully searching for the recipe and the right fish for quite a while. I keep not getting it right. But that's ok... because the "failures" all taste pretty darn good anyway. Today's fish was black tilapia, because that's what the store had in the category of "dinner is looking at you." And it was. But anyway... it wasn't quite what I'd expected, so I needed to google around for some ideas. I was inspired by this marinade and the basic gist here.

I cooked up half a bell pepper, half a giant red onion, half a mystery pepper (of the spicy kind), and a few mushrooms, all chopped up of course. And cooked in bacon fat, of course. I stuffed some of that into the fish. The rest was simmered in the leftover marinade.

The fish was a lot smaller than I'd expected, at under 1 pound, including all the bits we weren't going to eat. So I told the Grill Geek to toss a couple of boudin on the grill, as well.

The promise of good things to come...

He grilled the fish about 5 minutes per side. It worked. Not undercooked, not overcooked.

The anticipation:

Despite the oil in the marinade, the skin stuck to the grill basket. Oh, well, I wasn't planning to eat it anyway.

The veggies that didn't fit inside the fish went on top of rice. Just a squeeze of Meyer lemon to dress the fish- it was so tender, rather silky even. I had no idea the humble tilapia could be so good.


By the way, the Grill Geek insists that tilapia is not the "fruit of the sea," as Bubba from Forest Gump would say. Because a fruit can be eaten raw, and you wouldn't want to do that with tilapia. He says instead it is the "vegetable of the sea."
I just really wanted a cleverish title for this entry. So, I'm sticking to it. But I've included his comments because... well... he's right.