Cashew Coconut Mahi Mahi

So it's been a little while since I posted some recipes, but we are currently remodeling our kitchen, meaning that we literally took EVERYTHING out of the cabinets and set it on the living room floor, then painted all of the bases, and just had granite countertops put in... it's still a work in progress, but it's looking GREAT!  You'll be seeing some pictures soon, I'm sure :)

Anyway, on Wednesday night, Curt and I had a nice workout at the gym... the only problem was that afterwards, we were both STARVING and there wasn't really anything at home.  I stopped by the grocery store and found some frozen wild caught Mahi Mahi.  I grabbed the bag and headed towards the veggie section to find something to go with it.  I had planned to just broil the fish with some lemon and oil, but I turned over the bag of fish and lo and behold, I found this awesome recipe!  The original recipe called for cornstarch, but it was something that I could easily alter.  So here we have:

Cashew Coconut Mahi Mahi

* 2 (6 oz) filets of mahi mahi

* 1 pinch ground cayenne pepper

* 3 tbs of coconut flour

* 1/3 cup of coconut milk

* 1/2 cup of chopped, toasted cashews

* Salt & Pepper

I had raw cashews that I picked up from Trader Joes, but I wanted to toast them.  I think that toasting them really helps to warm up the oils and bring out a lot of the yummy flavor.  Keeping this in mind, I heated up a pan (without any sort of oil or spray) and threw the cashews in.  I put the heat up to medium and shook the pan every minute or so to make sure each side of the cashew was getting some color.

While I was waiting for the cashews to toast up, I mixed the coconut flour and the cayenne pepper.  I would suppose you could use any sort of flour type substance like almond flour or cashew flour.  I thought the coconut flour would go nicely with the coconut milk, so that's what I used.  You definitely want to coat the fish with something, though.

Once the cashews had some color, I chopped them up into tiny little chunks, not to the point that they were minced, but just to where they were small enough to fit nicely on the fish without it falling off all over the place.

Next, I dipped one side of the fish in the coconut flour mixture.  You don't need a ton, but you do want to have enough so that it sticks nicely to the fish.  This flour mixture is what allows the coconut milk to stick to the fish.

Now, onto the coconut milk.  Once the fish has a nice coating of coconut flour, you want to dip it, flour side down, in the coconut milk.  Make sure that it is all coated and yummy looking.

Next, I put the fish, coconut milk side up, in an oven proof pan.  I forgot to mention that I preheated my oven to 350.

Now, you pour the chopped cashews on top of the fish.  Some will fall off the sides, but it will be ok.  Just pack on all of the cashews that you can.  Then stick the whole thing into the preheated oven.  The fish only took 20 minutes to cook and then voila!

Cashew coconut mahi mahi!  This was absolutely delicious!  I'm really going to have to make this over and over again.  The fish was cooked through, but not tough.  The coconut milk helped to keep the fish tender and give a nice light coconut flavor.  I didn't feel that it overpowered the fish at all. 

This was another of those dishes where I was really suprised at how good it would be.  It's a definite keeper because it's deliciously paleo, really really simple, very quick, and fabulously tasty!  You all should DEFINITELY give this one a try!