East Meets West: Whole Fish En Papillote

En papillote is french which means to wrap in paper  (sounds fancy right?!).  In Singapore, there is a Chinese dish called 纸包鸡 which is paper wrapped baked chicken. The methodology is similar as it uses the principle of creating a vacuum and steam to cook whatever is wrapped inside the hot parcel. Personally, I love using this technique to cook fish because its almost 100% foolproof. Once you get the fundamentals, the rest is easy peasy.

I've started live stream cooking on Kittch.com recently. It is a platform that  You can catch the recording of me cooking the fish here.

INGREDIENTS 

- Whole rainbow trout approximately 2#. You can substitute with other fish too. 

- 1 cup coconut milk 

- 1 Tbsp OMG! Sambal 

- Aromatics herbs (about 1 bunch) 

We used onions, ginger, spring onions, basil for the cooking demo. 

- Fish sauce approx 1 Tbsp

You’ll also need parchment paper, tin foil and a baking tray large enough for the fish. 

METHOD 

- Heat oven to 380F/ 190C

- Tear enough foil and parchment paper to wrap up the fish with the seal edges at the top of the fish. 

- Layer the parchment paper on the tin foil. Then lay half the onions and aromatics on the paper. 

- Coat the fish liberally on both sides with OMG! Sambal® and then place on the bed of onions and aromatics.

- Place the other half of the onions and aromatics on top of the fish.  Then fold the sides of the tin foil so that it forms a side.  Then drizzle the coconut milk all over the fish.  

- Wrap the fish and all the aromatics + coconut milk seam side up. Make sure that there is no openings. Slide that into the hot oven. It will take about 35-45 minutes.  

- Be careful when you unwrap the parcel as there will be a lot of steam. Have fun and enjoy!