Filet de Sole en Papillote - My first attempt

I was first came across this technique from Laura Calder's TV show and i was immediately attracted by this simple to cook and yet incredibly delicious dish. "Filet de Sole" in French means fish filet and "en Papillote" means in parchment paper a.k.a. baking/greasy paper. The main concept of this technique is to capture the moisture within the paper while cooking, and the result should be a moistly cooked fish. But there are several catches during the process which i discovered during my try, lets go through it one by one below:

Vege base of carrot, celery, thyme, rosemary, salt and pepper, generous
 amount of either grape seed oil or olive oil

First thing to do is to roughly cut the desire vegetables to serve as a base to the fish fillet. Do pick large vegetable like above, or something like cucumber, leek, onion, or any root veg. Reason is because they do not wilt easily while steaming within the paper later on. Here is the trick: the cutting size should depend on the estimated cooking time of the fish, you want both fish and veg just nicely cooked.

Crimson Snapper a.k.a. "Ang Sai". You can practically use any fishes in
any sizes available as long as it is fresh but because i need it as a shared
dish so i use this big one. 

After cutting, on a large pcs of parchment paper, lay over the cuts, herbs (i should have used fresh one) and season and then put on the fish. Some like skin on some does not, so its your choice but one thing for sure, if you don't have fresh fish, please do NOT, do NOT try this technique because this is ought to be a light taste dish, any stench from a rotten fish will definitely ruin everything. 

Season the filet with salt, freshly ground black pepper, lemon zest (i did
it in wrong way cz i sliced too deep into the skin). We need
ONLY the yellow part of the skin not the white part!!

Season the fish. On principle you can use any herbs but because this is my first time so i keep it a simple seasoning. I will try something fancier next time like fennel seed, fresh dill. After the seasoning, i squeezed a halfed lemon onto the fish, just to ensure there is 'no' fishy smell (i'm not a fish guy). So when everything is done, time to 'packing'. 

I used 3 pcs of baking papers. One at the bottom so the whole pack can
be easily taken out after cooked. 

Cover the layers with another big pcs of baking paper and make a fold starting from any corner and then fold OVER the previous one and continue. You should end up with coming back to the very first fold but before ending the fold, pour in few splashes of white wine. No worry about the alcohol as it will be evaporated during the cooking process leaving nothing but the aroma itself to steam the fish. You may use a paper clip to help for a better fold along the way. i used four of them as the fish was too large. So next time, buy a 2 feet wide baking paper and cut them into square, if you can get the fish size right in the center of the paper, you will end of with a perfect round pack after folding. Try it and you will know what i mean.

Into the oven 200 degree Celcius convection over, pre-heat for 5 min before

i used a convection oven with top and bottom heating elements on. As you can see from the picture above, there has no direct fire towards the ingredients so while heating up, the wine will be boiling and the vapour created will steam the fish. So why fish over the veg? this is to ensure the top and bottom of the fish will get the SAME heating temperature for a uniform texture. Imagine if you put the veg on top of the fish and whats underneath is the tray. Tray will have higher temperature than vapour so the bottom size of the fish will be overcooked but the time you see the fish is cooked (on top). So the veg base below is to prevent the fish from overcook.

Final presentation: cut open the baking paper on the table and the released
steam/aroma will be a wow factor for the diners. 

For this 6/8" thick fish, the cooking time was 18 minutes at 200 degree Celcius (pre-heat for 5min). When you take out the tray from the oven, the whole packing should be bloated (folds are good). Gently slice the packing onto a serving plate. Beware of the juice inside from spilling out. Cut open the paper to release the steam within as part of the presentation and done.

Few more words:   I knew i will need around 20min to 'bake' this big fillet and thus i cut the veg into a relatively large size but i was wrong. They were not thoroughly cooked to the desired texture, i.e still got the crunchiness... zzz    However on the fish, it was PERFECTLY cooked. Fluffy, succulent and balanced of flavours between the added and the original.  Im glad that Mr. and Mrs. Lor actually finished it given than this is a new flavour that they never tried before.  In my next attempt, i will julienne celery, leek and carrot and give it a quick sauté and then get a smaller fish, i.e. mackerel around half and inch thick for around 10 min cooking time. I think it this combination will be good for individual serving. Stay tuned :)