Parchment parcels

Version française disponible ici ! 

Here is a recipe I made last week. But it’s faster to cook than it is to write articles (especially in English!), that’s why I share this recipe with you only now…

I remember that the weather was pretty rainy, which is probably the reason why I wanted to cook this dish. I’m talking about parchment parcels! I love to cook parcels and eat them of course ;) Cooking them because you can put anything you want in it. Moreover, it’s rather quick: most of the time you just have to cut vegetables and then the oven does the rest of the job! And eat them because it’s really flavourful! Ingredients are steamed into the parcel which saves the nutritional benefits and, most importantly, the flavours!

So I suggest you this one example of parcels among many possibilities. 

You will need for two people:

•  2 fish fillets or 2 chicken breasts (or 1 of each, guess which one is for whom ;)
• ½ green cabbage
• 2 carrots
• 1 small onion
• Some white wine
• A little bit of cream
• Mustard
• Thyme
• Salt, pepper

Start with vegetables:

Cut the cabbage half in 2, it will be easier to cook it. Put the cores of the 2 quarters aside. You could use them for another recipe. For example, I always keep the cabbages’ cores to eat them raw: I slice them thinly and then I mix them to some mayonnaise. That makes a good crunchy coleslaw salad!

Enough digression; let’s back to our main subject: cabbages! Cabbage is known to be difficult to digeste but as soon as you blanch it, it will be lighter! Cook the 2 cabbage’s quarters into salty boiling water for 4-5 minutes. Drain and let cool down before cutting them into slices. There is a lot of cabbage on the picture: I took the opportunity to pre-cook all of the pieces but you won’t need all of them!

Peel and thinly slice the onion. Then brown it in some olive oil. You don’t have to brown the onion before put it into the parcel if you don’t want to. But in my case, I allow no onion into my stomach if it’s not over cooked!

Peel and slice carrots (bevel them, it’s cute ;). Carrot need a long cooking time. To make them tender at the end of the parcels’ cooking, we have to pre-cook them. So plunge the sliced carrots into boiling water (the water of the cabbage will be perfect) and let cook for 5 minutes.

If you choose to cook the chicken breasts, slice them to make the cooking easier. It’s not necessary for the fish.

Prepare the sauce: mix 5-6 tablespoonful of wine with 2-3 of cream. Add some mustard as you wish. Salt and pepper.

The best part now: filling the parcels!

Take one parchment paper sheet and put in the center:

• The fish or the sliced chicken. If you choose the chicken, you can insert some cabbage slices   between the chicken slices. Add salt, pepper and thyme to it.

• Put on top of it some cabbage slices and carrot chunks. Sprinkle with some thyme.

• Pour the sauce, put the cooked onions and sprinkle with some thyme again.

• All you need to do now is to close the parcel by forming “wrapped candy” shape.

COOKING

Put into the oven, pre-heated to 180°C for 35 minutes.

And eat as soon as it’s cooked, into the parcel! Be careful, it’s hot!

TIPS AND TRICKS

My favorite parcels’ recipe contains salmon, leek & zucchini and just a trickle of lemon juice accompanied by some thyme. Unfortunately, this is currently not the right season for leeks … I’m going to wait for winter!

And in this case, you don’t have to pre-cook the vegetables, or cut the fish, it’s really quick to prepare and more importantly: it’s delicious :D

Have some good parcels!

Rose.