Fish-en-Papillote {Fish in Parchment}

Name: Fish-en-Papillote {Fish in Parchment}
Prep time: 10 min
Cook time: 16 min
Total time: 26 min
Yield: 2 servings
Ingredients: 1 tsp olive oil; 3 cups kale (-leaves removed from steam & bite size pieces); 1/2 tsp salt (-divided); 1/2 tsp black pepper (-divided); 1 tsp lemon juice; 1 cup cooked rice (-or quinoa or couscous); 2 5 oz halibut fillets; 1 red thai chili pepper (-chopped, optional); 3 tbsp sundried tomato pesto (-or pesto of your choice); 1 zucchini (-peeled and sliced into rounds (bigger rounds halved)); 1/2 cup grape tomatoes (-halved); 2 tbsp feta cheese (-crumbled); 2 15"x15" pieces parchment paper

July 25, 2016 Updated: January 22, 2018 By Dawn Coombs 42 Comments

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Fish-en-Papillote

This Fish-en-Papillote or Fish in Parchment is a super easy and healthy meal that you can prep and cook in under 30 minutes. There’s a base of cooked rice, topped with sautéed kale, halibut and pesto all surrounded by veggies; it’s then baked in a little parchment packet. This can easily be prepared in advance and popped in the oven for when you are ready. Makes for the perfect weeknight meal when you are in a rush, but still want something satisfying and good for ya!

Hey everyone! How’s it going? How was your weekend? We had a pretty chill weekend plus it was so nice and warm outside, which was a definite plus! There was lots of relaxing and some work outside in our garden. Of course, there were definite good eats involved, which meant there was also working out, lol. Which reminds me, hubby had The Late Show with Stephen Colbert recorded on our DVR and I’m not exactly sure when the show aired, but Stephen Colbert said a funny line and I was thinking that it was just absolutely perfect. Ok, here goes…goes something kinda like this. ….”I’m like a cast iron skillet…I may look clean, but I’m really well seasoned.’ Good one, isn’t it 😛 ? Yeah, that’s me….well seasoned? I’m down with that! We have a little notepad on our coffee table and whenever we hear little funny quotes or lines from shows we watch, we write ’em down. The little things, am I right?

This Fish-en-Papillote is just the thing when you are in a hurry or even elegant enough to have on a Friday or Saturday night when you have some friends over and share a bottle of vino. I love how everything is cooked and served in its own little packet, like a little foodie present!

For this Fish-en-Papillote, the star ingredient was halibut. I picked this up at the grocery store fresh caught that day…how could I possibly resist? Halibut is my favourite white fish. It’s just so meaty and it pairs wonderfully with so many flavours. If your prefer to use cod or haddock, be my guest! You rock that fish, my friend!

Speaking of seafood, let’s talk oceans (or more specifically a 565 million year old sea floor!) Just recently a location in Newfoundland (the province (like a state in the US) where I call home), has been named by UNESCO (United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization) a World Heritage Site. Fossils from the world’s oldest multicellular life form on ancient seafloor has been found according to CBC News. Apparently, according to the article, there are over a thousand World Heritage Sites in the World, with 18 of them in Canada and 4 in Newfoundland. How cool is that? That’s your little factoid piece of info for the day 🙂 You’re welcome 😉 I’ve given you guys plenty of reasons to visit Newfoundland on a previous post, but now that’s one more!

So onto the Fish-en-Papillote, right? For the carb component of this Fish-en-Papillote, I used black rice (and cooked and cooled in advance or you can use leftovers ?). I picked up the black rice when I visited a local Bulk Barn; I could spend so much time in there just browsing. It’s a great way to buy a little of something if you wanna try it out without committing to a big portion of it, ya know?

The black rice was pretty easy to cook, pretty standard stuff and tasted very nutty and kinda like brown rice. You can totally use whatever carb you want here…quinoa would work great or even couscous. Then I sautéed a little kale in some olive oil and put it on top of the cooked rice. If you want to skip the whole sautéing kale thing, you can use baby spinach and put in on top of the rice raw. It will cook in the oven.

The fish went on top of the kale and surrounded by some slices of zucchini and grape tomatoes. This is a pretty chill, easy going recipe. If you like, you can use bell peppers and mushrooms instead. I topped the whole thing with sundried tomato pesto and crumbled feta cheese (chili optional, but you know me…girl likes her spice ? I used store-bought sundried tomato pesto, but I also have an easy lemony arugula pesto found here.

You just wrap the whole lot up in some parchment paper (I used about 15″x15″) and bake on 400F for about 16-18 minutes until the halibut is cooked through. Wrap it kinda like when you wrap a sandwich in wax paper. Be careful when opening ’cause there will be some steam. Note to hubby – no, this is not an excessive amount of parchment paper ? Hubby always teases me when I tear off parchment paper, wax paper, foil, whatever thinking I’m going to wrap the house with it….what can I say….I wanna make sure I have enough 😉

As most often with me, there’s nothing fancy smancy here, you guys, just good food done simply. The key thing here is to make it your own. Use what you got, feel me? The basic process is still the same regardless.

Until next time, take care and chit chat again soon 🙂