Wednesday, May 14, 2008

Foil Fish Packets

Below is my favorite fish recipe. We try to eat fish once a week, if not every other week. This is a recipe from Giada, and I've made a few changes from the original. The steamed veggies are okay, and you could really add any veggie, such as substituting thin sliced carrots in place of the orange bell pepper, but the best part of the dish? The lemon peel-salt-pepper mixture you put on top of the fish. Be generous, it makes the fish so good, and because it's steamed, it's so moist.

1 lemon, zested
1 1/2 teaspoons salt, plus more for seasoning
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper, plus more for seasoning
1 1/2 pounds sugar snap peas, stemmed, or green beans with ends removed, or sliced zucchini
1 yellow bell pepper, sliced
1 orange bell pepper, sliced
1/2 cup chicken stock (the recipe called for white wine, but it was too strong for me)
1/4 cup lemon juice
4 teaspoons olive oil
4 (4-ounce) trout fillets, skinned (or other fish about 1/2-inch thick)- I use salmon
8 thin slices lemon
1/4 cup fresh chopped mint leaves, optional (I don't use this)
Special equipment: 4 large sheets of aluminum foil or parchment paper

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. In a small bowl mix together the lemon zest, salt, and pepper. Set aside.

Lay out the 4 sheets of aluminum foil. Place 1/4 of the sugar snap peas (or alternate veggie), 1/4 of the yellow bell peppers, and 1/4 of the orange bell peppers on each sheet of foil. Over each pile of vegetables drizzle 2 tablespoons of chicken stock, 1 tablespoon of lemon juice, and 1 teaspoon of olive oil. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and gently toss.

Top each pile of seasoned vegetables with a piece of fish. Sprinkle the fish with some of the reserved lemon zest mixture. Top each fish with 2 slices of lemon.

Fold up the foil into an air-tight packet. Place the foil packets in the oven and bake for 15 to 18 minutes depending on the thickness of the fish. Sprinkle the fish with mint just before serving.

3 comments:

Carissa Poyfair said...

Ever since Adam's "salmon incident" we haven't made fish. I am so excited to make this finally.

Stina said...

What was Adam's salmon incident? I'm excited to try this. I really really like fish and definitely need to cook with it more. Thanks, Kell!

Carissa Poyfair said...

We bought a salmon at Costco, the one that comes with the herb butter on top and you just throw it in the oven. Well, it's supposed to feed a whole family (6 maybe?) and I only ate a little, but Adam ate the entire rest of it because he didn't think it would be good as leftovers and didn't want to waste it. Well... salmon's a little rich and since he ate so much he ended up throwing it all up around 3am. He hasn't eaten baked fish since, and this was before Olivia was born!