I Heart Fish in Parchment

About author / Amy Powell

World traveler; gourmet 30 minute meals; lover of exotic ingredients; winner on FoodTV's Chefs vs City; graduate French Culinary Institute. Her recipes will tantalize your taste buds.

If fishing was easy it would be called catching, or so said a bumper sticker I read somewhere. Truth is I kind of wish fishing was more like catching. Fishing may be as all-American a summer pastime as baseball, but after trying my hand at it once every few years I’ve just decided it’s not for me. The problem is I just want the fish. The thought of finally reeling one in and then tossing it back in the water in the name of sport just doesn’t make sense to me. As that fish is freed from the hook and thrown carelessly back into the water, all I can see is my dinner swimming away.

Since the patience for fishing is clearly not my forte, I am lucky enough to have made friends with people over the years who do find pleasure in the pastime. And from time to time, I am the lucky recipient of the reward of their hours of hard work on a boat working the line. Fresh water bass, trout, and every now and then some halibut or salmon from Alaska have all found their way to my kitchen. I have put it out there to all my fishermen friends: if you do the work on the boat, I’ll do the work in the kitchen.

There are many ways to cook a fish and the best method likely depends on the catch of the day. One of my favorite methods is one of the easiest and most underused technique out there: cooking in parchment.

Parchment paper is a bit like the more common wax paper but without the waxy coating. You can use it in baking to line cookie sheets and prevent baked goods from sticking. You can butter and season it then wrap it around a casserole dish to make a collar for a souffle. You can cut parchment into a circle making a small vent hole in the middle for a makeshift lid to a pot that will keep flavor in while allowing liquid to reduce. And parchment can be used as a cooking device in and of itself to steam just about anything, a method that is most successfully used with our aquatic friend, the fish.

Working with the parchment is actually kind of fun and might take you back to the days of making homemade Valentine’s Day cards in elementary school. The actions to making a paper cut-out heart are about the same as making a parchment packet for cooking fish. A large rectangle of parchment (big enough to hold the fish to be cooked) is folded in half. A wide half heart shape is cut from the folded paper.

When unfolded, the end result should look like an imperfect if wide heart.
Into this heart will go the fish which can be whole or in fillets. A whole fish will need little more than oil, salt and pepper rubbed inside the cavity and outside on the skin. Filling the cavity with herbs and lemon slices will add some aromatics. If it is a light, white fish, additional fat from something like chopped olives can be a nice addition. A splash of white wine and the whole fish is ready to seal.

If the fish head might scare off your dinner guests, fillets offer a little more opportunity to play with additions to the parchment packet. Seasonal vegetables such as zucchini and tomato in the late summer, thin asparagus and tangerines in the spring, corn and butternut squash in the fall, can all add flavor to the steaming fish as well as rounding out the dish to make a complete meal. Depending on the vegetable, it may need to be par-cooked in advance such as with potatoes or butternut squash. But summer vegetables like yellow squash and tomatoes just need to be sliced and layered underneath the fish along with herbs and a splash of white wine for a whole meal in a packet.

Once the ingredients are arranged on one side of the parchment paper heart, a little egg white is brushed along the edges. The heart is then folded over to once again become a half heart. The egg white edges are crimped together twisted the paper in tightly all along the edge until it is sealed. The whole top is brushed with more egg white then onto a baking sheet and into a hot oven (400-450°F). Cooking will take a matter of minutes. Individual packages of fillets will puff up and be done in about 8 minutes, while a whole small fish such as a trout might take 17 minutes.

My impatience for fishing might actually extend to the cooking of the fish. When the fish is fresh I want to eat it fast and cook it in as simple a way as possible. Throwing a bunch of fresh ingredients in a paper packet with a fresh catch is about as easy as it gets with the added lazy person bonus that parchment means there will be less to clean up after the meal.

I may not yet have found the fun in fishing but I think I found the secret to fun with the fish: an easy parchment packet meal that puffs up golden brown, presents beautifully at the table when cut open and all the lovely aromas escape, and gets tossed when the meal is through.

Serves/Makes: 4

• 4 trout fillets, bones removed, skin on
• 2 medium tomatoes
• 1 medium yellow squash
• 1 small zucchini
• salt and pepper
• 12 basil leaves
• 4 sprigs thyme
• 4 tablespoons olive oil, plus a little extra
• 4 tablespoons butter
• 1/2 cup white wine
• 1 egg white