French Friday: Cooking En Papillote

I am posting this a day early as I will be computerless tomorrow.  Enjoy!

Cooking in a parchment paper pouch,  or en papillote in French, is the process of oven-steaming your food to capture flavor without adding fat.  The moisture needed may be from the food itself or from an added source like water, wine, or stock.  Ultimately, this means healthy food that cooks quickly with very little clean up.  A foil packet can be used if parchment is not available. 

Any variety of vegtables can be used: carrots, snap peas, onions, bok choy,  whatever suits your fancy.  It also works well with fish and chicken.  My choice of veggies were red pepper, onion, carrots and broccolli.   My packet was constructed out of foil.

1. Preheat the oven to 400ºF.  Cut 12-inch-long pieces of nonstick foil.   If you do not have nonstick foil, spray lightly with cooking spray.

2.Thinly slice the vegtables and cut the broccolli into small to medium florets.
3. Mix all the ingredients together, season as desired and spoon equal amounts onto the center of each piece of foil. Draw up the sides of the foil and seal the packets well; leave room around the ingredients, so they can steam. Put packets on a baking sheet.
4. Bake 15 minutes (Open a packet to test.) Serve immediately.

I  love the simplicity of this technique.  Anyone can do it and it is wonderful for anyone with dietary concerns.

I give this technique 8 chips out of a bag of 10.

Clarified Butter Tutorial

For one of my baking challenges this month, I need to incorporate clarified butter.  There is a fantastic step by step tutorial here:

http://blog.josephhall.com/2006/08/tutorial-clarified-butter.html

It is surprisingly easy, it just takes a little time and you get great results!