For a quick, fresh dinner this fish dish, starring asparagus, mushrooms and peas, is a total winner
Diana Henry
The Telegraph's award-winning cookery writer
Diana Henry is the Telegraph’s much-loved cookery writer. She shares recipes each week, for everything from speedy family dinners to special menus that friends will remember for months. She is also a regular broadcaster on BBC Radio 4, and her journalism and recipe books, including Simple and How to Eat a Peach, are multi-award-winning. A mother of two sons, Diana can satisfy even the fussiest of eaters.
Published
It seems like a faff when you first cook something en papillote (in which food is enclosed in a paper parcel) – cutting the paper to the right size, folding it properly – but it becomes easy with practice. Once the package is in the oven the air inside it expands and becomes perfumed with the ingredients that are cooking in the hot, moist heat.
What you end up with is a dish much more than the sum of its parts. It’s as if every flavour in the parcel has been captured and intensified.
Overview
Prep time
15 mins
Cook time
20 mins
Serves
4
Ingredients
- 30g unsalted butter
- 200g wild summer mushrooms, such as chanterelles or shitake
- 4 handfuls pea shoots
- 4 seabass fillets, about 125g each
- 8 tbsp dry vermouth
- 4 tbsp chicken stock (quite strong if possible)
- 24 asparagus tips, bases trimmed (or 12 fine asparagus spears, halved)
Method
Step
Preheat the oven to 200C/180C fan/gas mark 6.
Step
Melt 15g of the unsalted butter.
Step
Cut out eight squares of greaseproof or baking parchment or foil (baking parchment looks much nicer), each roughly 36 x 40cm, and set them on top of each other in pairs to make four double-layered squares. Brush the middle of each top layer with butter.
Step
Take your 200g wild mushrooms. If you are using chanterelles, clean them with a brush. Halve any that are large. If you are using shitake, slice them.
Step
Melt the remaining 15g butter in a pan and quickly sauté the mushrooms until they have a good colour. Season.
Step
Divide 4 handfuls of pea shoots and the mushrooms between the parcels. Place 4 seabass fillets on the top, seasoning with salt and pepper.
Step
Top each fillet with 2 tbsp of the vermouth, 1 tbsp of the chicken stock and a quarter of the trimmed asparagus tips.
Step
Divide any remaining melted butter between the packages.
Step
Carefully bring two longer sides of each parcel together, folding them over to seal the edges, to make a tent. Seal each end by folding and tucking them securely underneath, trying not to let the liquids run out.
Step
Transfer the packages on to a metal baking sheet and bake in the oven for 15 minutes.
Step
Lift the parcels on to a serving platter or plates and open at the table.