Learn how to ‘en papillote’, a unique cooking technique from our Cooking with Confidence course that wraps and cooks food in a sealed parchment paper package.
What does it mean to ‘en papillote’? En papillote is a French cooking method which means to wrap and cook food in a sealed parchment paper package. It’s a moist-heat cooking method because the steam inside the package is what cooks the food. Traditionally, the package was wrapped in parchment and baked in the oven, but these days, the term is used for other methods too. You can wrap food in things like banana leaves, pandan leaves, or foil, and cook it in a steamer or on a grill…
When preparing fish en papillote, you add some liquid, along with herbs, aromatics, and seasonings, to the fish before wrapping it tightly in parchment paper, foil, or leaves. As the package heats up, the added liquid, along with the fish’s own juices, creates steam. This allows the food to make its own sauce while cooking, which can result in very intense and delicious flavours.
Want to try our sea bass recipe? Give it a go, here.
This recipe serves four, if you are only serving two, we recommend you purchase only two sea bass fillets and you can keep the rest of the ingredients the same.
This recipe is about timing and temperature and illustrates how easy it is to juggle multiple components in one oven. First in the oven are the Hasselback potatoes which need about 1 hour to cook. While they are roasting, prepare the en papillote ingredients, roast the tomatoes and get the sea bass parcelled up and ready to cook. If the Hasselbacks are cooking too fast it is perfectly fine to remove them from the oven so they don’t overcook. You can return them to the oven for the last 10 minutes of cooking.
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