Healthy Throwback Meal (Snapper en Papillote)

I got together with my good friend, Michelle, last night and we made dinner. It turned out really good so I wanted to share it, although it's not a new technique to the blog. This is a technique that I went over when the blog wasn't even a year old yet. It's such a great technique for fish because it's fast, healthy, simple and very delicious. It's a French technique whereby fish and some vegetables or aromatics are steamed en papillote (meaning a parcel made of parchment paper or metal foil, generally). 

Here, we split a fillet of red snapper and laid it on a bed of broccoli, asparagus, red onion, carrots and sliced garlic dotted with a bit of butter and seasoned with salt and pepper. We added a few small pieces of butter on top of the fish with some more salt and pepper before sealing it up in parchment paper. We placed the parcels in the middle of a preheated 400F/205C for only ten minutes and the fish and vegetables were steamed to perfection. 

We chose to remove the contents from the papillote (some prefer to eat it right out of the parcel) and plated it alongside a mix of brown and wild rice that we cooked. We squeezed a bit of fresh lemon juice over the fish. Just for an extra kick, we added a bit of this beautiful sauce that we both bought on our visit to Trinidad last year. It's a bright, marigold colour sauce made from scotch bonnet peppers, papaya and mustard seed. It's not quite as fiery as your average Caribbean pepper sauce but it does have some attitude. The papaya gives it a tropical sweetness and the subtle mustard note almost gives it a nod to the curries Trinidad & Tobago is famous for. It's really interesting and it goes so good on a lot of things. Because of the seasoning, the butter, lemon juice and the natural juices of the fish a sauce isn't really required. You could go without or substitute with your favourite hot sauce or any other sauce you may see fit. 

That's all for this post. I hope you enjoyed! I'm constantly brain storming and coming up with new ideas that I want to do for the blog so stay tuned. I just wanted to make a brief mention of this dish because it worked on so many levels and I thought it deserved it.

Until next time,

B