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Monday 28 October 2013

Fish - Week 2: Arctic char cooked in a parchment paper bag!

Hi, blog! Long time no see! Sorry about my absence, I got distracted by school, travelling, and running errands here and there. But really, put all my excuses aside,  I have just been procrastinating. It's been decided, the resolution of November is to catch up with my blog posts! 

In the second week of the Fish class, we learned how to cook round fish. We steamed a pickerel and cooked arctic char in a parchment paper bag. Personally, I don't really like steamed fish. Steaming fish is a very Asian way to prepare fish, usually a whole fish is used. I find that it's hard to get flavours into the fish by just steaming it. As a result, the fish sometimes has a strong "fishy" taste. On the other hand, the Italian dish "fish en papillote", a.k.a., fish cooked in a parchment paper bag, is one of my favourite cooking techniques. It's a light, healthy dish that only requires a small amount a butter, and short cooking time. Since you can add vegetables of your choice to the same parchment bag, it's really a "one-pot" reaction that you get your main and side dishes at the same time. 

Arctic char en Papillote
Ingredients
4 pieces of Arctic char fillets
4 green onions, chopped
2 shallots, brunoise (very small dice)
half fennel, julienned
half carrot, julienned
half celery stalk, julienned
half leek, julienned
3 sprigs of parsley
125 mL dry white wine
25 mL lemon juice
salt/pepper
butter

Methods
1. pre-heat the oven to 400F
2. take a piece of parchment paper, brush the paper with some butter and vegetable oil
3. season the fish with salt and pepper on both sides, put the fish on one side of the paper
4. put chopped vegetables on top of the fish
5. add a splash of white wine to the fish/vegetables
6. use the other side of the parchment paper to wrap everything inside 
7. bake at 400F for 20min