The asparagus in the garden is doing pretty good this year. It’s not a great patch but it gives us enough for us and there is nothing like going out and harvesting a few stalks for dinner. Here is a recipe I share with you quite a few years ago that if you didn’t make it then, you should think about it. It was super easy to make and actually kind of fun to eat. Plus who doesn’t like getting their own little packet of yumminess. You can even personalize them if you wish to. 

I bought some wonderful cod from my local market, grabbed some asparagus from the garden; I really didn’t have a plan yet but I thought it would at least look pretty with the green vegetable over the white fish. I figured I would slice up some onions or shallots or both and add a slice of lemon a little salt and pepper and voila a meal was born. Well almost

I figured I needed to add some liquid so everything would steam in the packet and from some reason I was leaning toward an Asian profile.  So I started looking around the internet for some flavor Ideas and there are some great ones out there but I wanted something simple with ingredients I had on hand. I always have soy sauce and I found a bottle of Mirin next to the Soy Sauce; which Mirin is a type of rice wine vinegar that along with some sugar and it made a wonderful light taste to go along with the everything else in my little paillote; well mine was much larger than I think it should have been. When I make it again I will use a smaller piece of fish or at the very least only a few pieces of asparagus. I would do everything else the exact same, it was a very nice simple meal that took under 30 minutes from start to finish even cleanup was minimal.

Fish en Papillote - fish in parchment

An easy dinner in under 30 minutes, and minimal mess. Plus customizable.

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Ingredients

  

• 1 Cod Fillet about 4 ounce per serving
• 12 Asparagus trimmed, 3 pieces per packet
• fresh Thyme a sprig per packet
• ¼ lemon a slice per packet
• 12 cherry tomatoes sliced, 3 per packet
• 1 shallots thinly sliced
• ¼ onion thinly sliced
• Kosher salt and black pepper
• 3 tablespoons mirin
• 3 tablespoons soy sauce
• 1 teaspoon sugar

Instructions

 

• place fish in the middle of your piece of parchment, salt and pepper, add slices shallot and tomatoes, place a few pieces of asparagus and a slice of lemon. Pour some of the soy sauce mixture over each packet.
• Start on the side of the parchment and crimp and roll until it is completely closed. Place on a sheet pan with your other packets and place in a 350'F oven for about 15 minutes.

Flavor

• In a small pan, whisk the mirin, soy and sugar. Heat just till the sugar dissolves.

Macros per packet using 3 spears of asparagus
212 Calories
23.5 Protein
24 Carbs
2.7 Fat