How to Make Red Snapper en Papillote

I'm using parchment paper, which you can buy by the roll. Actually, I buy it by the large roll at Costco because you go through this. It's about the same price as a small roll. You just tear off a piece of parchment and you're starting. You just want a big enough piece because you're going to fold it over, so depending upon what you're putting in. Now, the whole trick to doing these packets is to cook in layers and to build up in layers. So we don't want to put the fish directly on the paper because number one, it will be hard to get off, the steam won't get under it to really cook it. So today I'm going to— and you can use a variety of different things, but today I'm going to use a little broccoli rabe because I'm going to put a little greens under it. Right about there. I got to try and figure out where I'm going to put it for the fold so I don't have to move it again. Then I have a piece— we were going to do mahi, and when I went to get my fish out, I realized I didn't have mahi, I had red snapper, so I quickly changed it. Here's your red snapper, and it's going to go on top of the greens. Now we start with— well, first I'm going to season it. You do not have to use olive oil. I know someone put in the comments that it's great, you don't have to use any fats. That's true. You can just use wine, you could use stock, you could use water, but you want to get a little bit of liquid in it. I'm just going to put a little bit of olive oil on the fish itself. I'm going to season it with black pepper.

You know what that reminds me of? I have a high-end, not a snack bar type of, a really good Greek restaurant in our town, and they do so much fish. They get it from Fulton Fish Market in Brooklyn or the Bronx, I think. The point is they do the most wonderful versions of snapper. Red snapper. I can't remember what else, but anyway, point is, you know, it's extremely moist, lots of seasonings. They must put oregano in. So is there a version, like a Greek sort of version you can do as well?

You can do anything with this. This is a— someone put down that it's the blank canvas. Think of your parchment as a blank canvas, and that was a perfect way to think of it. Because you can build anything you want on it, and you can use any ingredients. You just want to go by a few rules of thumb. Number 1 is, the first step is build it up a little bit so it's not flat on the paper. Now you could put lemon down there. I'm putting greens. I've never done it with greens before, so I have no idea how it's going to come out. Greens under it, you could put couscous under it. You could put a different grain under it. You just want to build it up so there's some air will get in, the steam will get in, and it'll cook from the bottom through too. So this is actually going to be a little bit of Mediterranean, not the Greek side but more the Italian side of what I'm doing today, but you could easily change it up with some of your favorite Greek items, and you could easily adapt it to the flavors and the seasonings that you want to use. I'm not using a lot of fresh herbs today, but you could. It could go with dill. It could go with fresh oregano. Actually, I was looking for marjoram. They didn't have any at the store. I was going to get some fresh marjoram to try. Oregano, for what I was doing today, was just going to be a little too heavy. Marjoram, if you've never used it, is just kind of an oregano light, I like to think of it as.

Do you put some citrus in there, as well?

Yes, I am. You want an acid. The basic rules is you want aromatics, you want things that are going to give it some flavor, some odor— not odor, some distinct smells. Also, the acid would be either balsamic vinegar, a wine, or lemon juice, something in here that's going to help break it down a little bit too. As we're building it, we build up first, and I said we start with the aromatics. The aromatics for me are going to be some olives. So here's, you know, a little bit of your Greek right there. You could use Kalamata instead. Let me switch cameras.

That looks great.

Olives, we're gonna do— I'm trying to remember what I put on. I want to get a piece of garlic. I'm just gonna slice that garlic down a little bit.

Now I never heard of that, to raise up the fish. I think that's really, really interesting. I would have thought that maybe you could just put a layer of oil below it and it wouldn't stick, but there seems to be another reason to have it a little bit higher.

You know, I think, like I said, I've never tried. Usually I put the lemon underneath or something else, or some lentils or something, but this should work well. So I've got— now I'm putting on some fennel. So I've got olives, I've got garlic, I've got fennel.

Oh, nice!

Now here are some capers. Here's another nice aromatic.

I think we should be filming from the South of France.

And we've got some scallions. I don't want to— you could use onions, you know. I was going to caramelize some leeks and put some caramelized leeks on it, but I have the scallions, so I thought, well, let me use them. And then again, I want to get some color in here. You could put tomatoes in if you wanted to, but I just got some pepper, some little red and yellow pepper juliennes. Now I'm going to add a little bit of mushroom. I'm actually going to put this on the side. This is going to be a little add-on, a little treat.

That looks fantastic.

We're just going to put a little mushroom on the side. Now I've got a little bit of the fennel leaf, that's my seasoning. Little bit of parsley. Now I'm going to layer in 2 lemon slices and hit it with just a little bit more oil. Little more parsley. That's basically it. Again, you can build this any way you want. Raise it up, layer it, put the fish down. If you want to use mahi, you want to use— it's going to be a firm white flesh fish. I don't know how something like tuna or swordfish would work in this. It might dry out too much because you want the fish to have some kind of fat. This would work well with salmon. This would work well, you know, with some other varieties of fish. I'm trying to think. Grouper would work good.

Chef, in the local fish store, I saw halibut.

Halibut would be wonderful. Halibut's expensive, though, so halibut, you know, I may more try to simply prepare that because halibut's getting up in the high end of cost of fish. So I might just pan-sear that, but you could definitely do halibut. But grouper would be real good.

Would you do it with salmon?

Yes, definitely salmon. Salmon, mahi, grouper. Snapper. Those are some of the better fishes. It would probably work with cod. Cod's not very fat, so I might add a little bit more oil to it. This is it, though. That's all she wrote. Now, you'll see if you Google recipes, what you'll see is everybody says cut your paper into a heart-sized shape. Well, I think I failed that part of kindergarten, so we're just going with a square. And we're gonna, we're gonna hope for the best. So what I'm gonna do now is I'm folding it over. I've got room. You don't want it to be wrapped tight like a present. You want to leave some room for air. So I've got it here now. I'm just gonna start my folds, and I'm gonna try and crease them a little as I go to help keep them sealed. I'm actually gonna do two folds here.

It's interesting, the image on my computer with the food can is frozen. I don't know if that's frozen for anyone else. It's frozen for me.

It's moving on both of mine. Guys, are you seeing this good? Yeah, I'm moving on both of my computers, so hopefully—

Maybe it's just me.

Hopefully it's working. Well, we'll see. Could just be the wonder of Google again. All right, so once we've got this done, all right, then you're going to fold it, the edges in and out. Then these I start to fold a little bit like a present. And then I'm just going to wrap, roll them, fold them a little bit.

So is it tighter or looser?

It's, it's a loose fold. Okay. I mean, I'm, I'm creasing, I'm doing the best I can to crease these so they stay connected. But on the edges here, once I've got them tucked in tight, because you want a nice tight seal. Then I'm folding in the corners like I would do a present to make that like little boat kind of thing when you made paper boats. And then from there—

You could always put some twine around it, couldn't you?

What's that?

But you could always put some twine, string a little bit of twine.

You know, I think twine would probably be a little overkill, but I was thinking of using a stapler.

Oh yeah, yeah.

I thought maybe a stapler would work too. Although, you know, for presentation-wise, bringing it out to your guests with a couple staples in it— if it's just you and your husband, or with me and Lisa, it's okay.

But I'm thinking of an 8-year-old who does origami.

Yeah, but this is holding together pretty, pretty well. It's, it's staying, it's staying fairly well closed. And that's basically it. And it's done. At this point, I'm gonna put it on a baking sheet and put it in the oven, 425-degree oven, and it's gonna take about 15 to 18 minutes. A good indicator is usually when the paper has gotten nice and brown, golden brown, and it'll puff up a little bit too. Came out of the oven, and you can see a little browning around the edges, so that shows you that it's done. Now, it did sit for a while because when it first comes out of the oven and you plate it like this and you let your guests open it, the aromatics and the steam are going to really hit you.

You know, now I can see it. Now it's live for me. Oh, that looks fantastic. Wow. Now, tell me about the broth that's inside. Is that— Did you— was it— were you able to capture that?

There's not going to be much broth because I did not put any real amount of liquid in here, and that would kind of— you wanted to steam with its natural juices. You want a little bit of broth in there, a little bit of liquid in there, but you want the fish juices to steam and everything else to steam. And so, you know, you're not adding— there's not like there's going to be a sauce. It's just going to be very moist. It's going to be very tender. You know, you could squeeze this lemon over it, but I mean, I will move just some of this so you can see.

I guess my question is, does it— my guess is it will produce some juices, not that you put a broth in there, but that it will produce a broth. And does that broth evaporate in the cooking, or can you sort of pour it on the dish?

No, you can't. There's not going to be that much broth to pour.

Okay.

It's not so much as it's going to evaporate as the steam. Like, you can see the condensation on the paper where it got wet from the steam, but it'll all be just— everything, mushrooms cooked well, broccoli rabe.

Wow, it looks tasty. All those things make it tasty. Wow. That's what I think you need.

The broccoli rabe.

Yeah.

Yeah. Oh no, this is really good. Break off a little piece of fish. You can see the fish has got a nice, very moist—

And you know what? When you add the colors and the textures and, you know, the multiple ingredients on there, It makes it so palatable.

Yeah, it is just—

That looks great. That looks terrific. We have a few questions. Sure. Okay, so MJ