France- Salmon En papillote

A Little History:

The history of the technique of cooking food wrapped in a bag is actually unknown, however the word Papillote has many different meanings in french, including a technique to curl your hair, a cracker at Christmas and also cooking something in paper, like this recipe. 

Ingredients:

•  300g baby potatoes, scrubbed
• 4 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
• finely grated zest of 1 unwaxed lemon
• salt and pepper
• 4 Salmon fillets, scaled, gutted and de boned (you can get your fishmonger to do that!) 
• 1 bulb of fennel, thinly sliced
• 4 heaped tablespoons creme fraiche
• lemon wedges

1. Cut the potatoes in half, then steam/ boil the potatoes until almost tender, this should take around 10 minutes. Leave to cool until you can hold them, then slice them. Preheat the oven to 170 degrees celsius.

2. Mix the olive oil with the grated lemon zest and salt and pepper to taste (that means how much you want for your own palette). Rub this mixture all over the salmon.

3. Take a few layers of the fennel so you get the freshest part of the bulb, then thinly slice pieces of the fennel.

4. Lie the fish on their sides and stuff in between with the slices of fennel and then place the sliced potato around the fish like soldiers lining up, then wrap the baking paper like you would a Christmas cracker and placed in the oven for 15- 20 minutes, this depends of the thickness of the fish. To see if the fish is cooked, the flesh should be opaque and you should be able to flake the fish easily with a fork.

 I'm really sorry but I didn't take a picture of the finished result! I had a hungry family to feed and they were as impatient as a short tempered bull! I served my fish with a squeeze of lemon, a dollop of half fat creme fraiche and some steamed asparagus (my favorite vegetable!). You could serve just the fish, or you could add steamed vegetables or Dauphinois Potatoes. You could also change the salmon to what every fish is in season, freshwater trout would make a wonderful alternative to salmon. But please whatever you do, for the love of God, DO NOT EAT THIS WITH KETCHUP! It will ruin it!

Thank you for reading!!! Next time my last recipe from France (haven't decided yet, any suggestions? X)

Thank you to the amazing Rachel Khoo for her recipe from the brilliant book The Little Paris Kitchen