Dressed to Impress: “En Papillote”
All you have to do is slice the vegetables thinly, wrap all the items in a piece of parchment or tin foil, and cook the parcel in the oven at 200 degrees C (390 degrees F) for 20 minutes or on the barbecue so that the food cooks in its own juices, keeping the moisture in the pouch, which will swell with hot steam. When cooked, slide the bag onto the diner’s plate and watch as they unwrap their parcel. It never falls to impress! Serve with new potatoes, couscous, or rice.
Cooking en papillote is a healthy way of cooking that perfectly suits delicately flavored foods. Here are some ideas:
- Dry vermouth or dry white wine, thyme, parsley, and dill with fennel, carrot, celery, and shallot or onion. Note that fennel has a strong flavor that is not to everybody’s taste and could be replaced by leek
- A taste of the East: Soy sauce, a splash of sherry, just a drop of sesame oil with julienne of ginger, garlic, sweet peas
- Be adventurous: White wine or dry vermouth, tangerine or orange slices, fennel, red onion, chives
- Provencal style: Chopped (seeded, drained) tomatoes, olives, oregano, capers, garlic.
- North African way: garlic clove, 1 tsp cumin seeds, extra-virgin olive oil, juice of 1 lemon + zest or 1 finely chopped preserved lemon, 1 jalapeño pepper, seeded, 1 bunch coriander, salt & pepper to taste
Now for the more complex question of, which fish? Whole gutted and cleaned trout, sole, salmon fillets, and bream are good choices. Mostly farmed so sustainable, they never achieve the same flavor as their “free range” counterpart, but when it comes to cod, should we still provide a demand when stock are being depleted? Are there still plenty of fish in the sea?
