Salmon en Papillote
Salmon in a paper parcel
You need to preheat your oven to 130C (250F) and prepare a double sheet of kitchen foil, enough to enclose the fish in a loose parcel. Brush this with melted butter or olive oil.
Wipe the cleaned and gutted fish with kitchen paper, put a little butter and two bay leaves in the stomach cavity, season with salt and pepper, place it on the foil and seal the parcel tightly.
You will need to put this parcel on an oven tray and bake in the oven for the required time, given below.
Once it's cooked the skin will easily come off the salmon and you can also bone it as described under "Poached Salmon".
Incidentally, if you intend to eat the fish cold, leave it in the unsealed parcel to cool down. It will retain all the juices and flavor, remaining firm and moist for when you wish to serve it.
As a guide, a whole salmon weighing four pounds will take 2.5 hours to cook. Add or subtract half an hour for each 1 pound difference in weight, so that a 3 pound fish will take 2 hours, a 5 pound one will take 3 hours and so on.
As a side note, I once cooked a picnic trout for friends using this method by taping the parcel next to the manifold of the car we were traveling in. It worked a treat. By the time we got to our destination the fish was perfectly cooked.
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