Cooking en papillote means putting the ingredients inside a parchment paper pouch and baking it in the oven. The paper holds in the moisture while cooking. This moisture flavors the fish along with the aromatics and liquid to make a tender and subtle tasting meal. This is a good method for any delicate fish and can even be used for chicken, vegetables and fruit. Before baking the fish in its pouch, the fennel is sliced and pan-fried in butter and then spooned into each pouch. By far, this is one of the simplest recipes so far!Here is Alton Brown's episode about this cooking method: The Pouch Principle.
Here is a great article about it: The Envelope, Please: Cooking En Papillote.
Recipe
Serves 4
2 large bulbs fennel
4 tablespoons unsalted butter
16 fresh basil leaves
4 tablespoons dry white wine
4 teaspoons Pastis or Ricard (optional)
You can find the recipe for Snapper with fennel en papillote in the book Le Cordon Bleu Complete Cook Home Collection.
To see how the rest of the Whisk Wednesdays group fared with their recipe, click here (or check out the sidebar) and then click on each blogger!.jpg)
Tasting NotesThis was a very easy dish to make and would be great for entertaining since you can prepare it ahead of time. However, I prefer fish with sauce, and there wasn't a sauce with this one. I loved the fennel though. This dish is perfect for Valentine's Day since the shape of the parchment is a heart. Also, since it's enclosed in an envelope, it would be a perfect Oscar Party meal.
Next Class
Blanquette de Lotte aux Petits Légumes (Monkfish in White-Wine Cream Sauce with Vegetables) pages 408-409
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Running total: $1,063.16 + $14.19 (fish) + $6.37 = $1,083.72
($5.14 per serving)
Butter used so far: 9 pounds, 28 tablespoons
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Butter used so far: 9 pounds, 28 tablespoons
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::Whisk Wednesdays::
We're cooking our way through a cooking school curriculum using the Le Cordon Bleu at Home cookbook. The "classes" are based on the Le Cordon Bleu curriculum found online and used as a guideline. Not all the items in the curriculum are in the cookbook, but most are. Where the items are not in the book, we try to find a suitable substitution. Find out more here.
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23 comments:
Love cooking fish en papillote. This looks so good - I have never tried snapper this way.
That sounds great! I've recently discovered how much I like fennel, and I bet it's wonderful with snapper.
This looks lovely...I like the white parchment with this fish as it looks so nice with the white and green. I wanted to do snapper and fennel, but could find no snapper, so I will save that and do it later...I love cooking in parchment! Yours looks absolutely amazing!
Looks lovely!
We had something ever so similar on Tuesday, trout and fennel en papillote. I also put couscous and pinenuts into the bag underneath the fish and added some stock. The cous cous cooks in the stock while the fish steams.
That looks delish! I love fennel after only trying it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. A great dish you've made there.
Looks lovely-- and healthy! But if I wanna push the envelope, what sauce would you recommend? Hee hee :)
I love fish cooked this way!
Yours looks so rustic and delicious in it's little package.
Snapper is such a delicious fish. I like the way you prepared it. I have never tried fish with fennel - must be yummy.
I've done fish en papillote before and love it, I'm excited to try it with fennel!
What a beautiful dish! I am looking forward to trying this with more fish. I have some halibut calling me. I love your photos, even your prep photos are grand.
Beautiful photos and the heart shape is such a wonderful idea!
This looks great, I just love fennel. It's definitely one of my favorite vegetables.
Cooking in parchment is a good idea for those of us trying to lose weight. I actually need to try out more recipes like this (with no sauce!) It looks beautiful :)
simple and good are great combo's for every day cooking!
Fennel and fish is a wonderful combination Shari. It looks so moist!
Someone who uses fennel can't do wrong with me :)
Isn't it fun to bake in parchment!
Your fish looks fabulous!
ahh i love the flavours working in this - so clean and so good. i made my housemate cook dinner for me yesterday. LOL. and he basically made this with lemon and dill...guess he was inspired by yours :) x
The boy made some talapia en papillote for dinner Sunday.
He made a basil butter too.
It was wonderful.
I recently made fish and vegetables with Asian seasonings in foil packets. I love that clean up was so easy and everyone enjoyed their own serving.
The flavor combinations of your dish sound delicious. Fennel is appearing on our dinner table quite often lately.
Wasn't this lovely to make! I loved opening the parchment pouches.
Great post!
This looks and sounds terrific! I love fennel, and am excited about snapper recipes that don't use tomato.
I love the parchment effect, too! So moist!!!
Cheers,
~ Paula
This is one of my favourite ways of cooking delicate white meat fish. I love that you used the green parts of the fennel, too many people just throw that part away.
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