November 20, 2013
Babies don’t come with a handbook, but motherhood certainly comes will a million competing ideas of how to “do it right,” especially when it comes to feeding. My “Family Cooking School” series is about helping you master a few basics across my 4 P’s of family cooking—planning, pantry, prepping, and parenting—so that you can become the happy, confident family cook that I know you can be.
Today’s technique is cooking en papillote, a French cooking method that involves baking ingredients in a parchment paper (or aluminum foil) “package.”
Cooking en papillote sounds super fancy, I know, but it turns out to be one of those rare restaurant techniques that is easy to replicate at home. Not only is it simple, but it’s also healthy, low mess, and relatively quick. It’s pretty much a genius family cooking technique, as long as you know how to do it right.
The basic idea is simple: you layer quick cooking protein and/or vegetables on olive oil brushed parchment paper, wrap, and cook. The key is to ensure that you have a tight seal so that a flavorful steam, imbued with all of the flavors whirling around in the package, can gently cook dinner. Here are some pointers on mastering parchment cooking:
Check out this recipe for Cod en Papillote from the One Hungry Mama archive. Also, to both get a better sense of how to cook en papillote and have a healthy shortcut ready-to-go in your freezer, look for Bumble Bee SuperFresh in the freezer section of your supermarket.
This is one of my favorite new food products for the family kitchen. Each package comes complete with everything you need to cook fish en papillote. The fish is cleaned, cut, seasoned, and fresh frozen in a vacuum seal (similar to the way that Trader Joe’s sells it, for those of you who have a TJ’s nearby). Even the parchment paper is included!
The more important part is that these are all natural. The ingredients list is short and sweet, populated only with ingredients that you can also find in your pantry, and the seafood is sourced from wild fisheries or aquaculture farms that have earned official certification from third-party monitors.
Making your own papillote is great when you prefer chicken or want to control the flavor of your fish, having Bumble Bee SuperFresh on hand is great for when you want a light, healthy, all-natural dinner in 15 minutes with zero prep. Either way, I hope that cooking in parchment becomes a new go-to technique in your kitchen.