Seasoned Parchment Wraps
A couple of months ago, I purchased a neat new cooking product. It was a piece of parchment paper, folded in half, oiled and seasoned. It was designed to be a cooking wrap for boneless, skinless chicken breasts. There were four wraps in the package. I used two of them with chicken one night, and the other two with boneless pork chops for dinner another night. Then, I had a “light bulb moment.”
- I have parchment paper. I have oil. I have seasonings, fresh and dried. I can make my own much less expensively, and best of all, I and can control the seasonings. I decided to try it out on red snapper fillets.
- Cut the parchment paper pieces, a little bigger than twice the size of the boneless piece fillet. If your fillet is 3 inches X 6 inches, cut a piece of parchment 7 inches X 8 inches and fold in half to be 4 inches X 7 inches. Cut one wrap for each serving.
- Sprinkle a few drops of oil on each wrap and rub onto both sides of the parchment.
- Open the wrap flat, add salt and pepper, and herbs and spices of your choice, fresh or dried.
- Place the fish, chicken or pork of your choice (no thicker than ¾ of an inch) on one half of the wrap, and fold the other half over.
- Heat a skillet to medium high. Do not add oil. Place each wrap into the hot skillet. Cook for the length of time that you would usually cook a piece of meat on one side, and then carefully flip to other side, being careful to keep fillet inside the wrap. Cook a few minutes more. I used my long fish spatula to keep everything together. If you don’t have a fish spatula, try using two regular pancake turners.
- To serve, obviously, discard the parchment.
- For my red snapper, I used salt and pepper and fresh basil, thyme and parsley from my herb garden. I placed the red snapper fillet on one half of the wrap and sprinkled it with lemon juice before folding the wrap over.
- What I found with cooking chicken, pork and the snapper, is that the meat is perfectly cooked and retains its moisture. All delicious!