Gulf Red Snapper En Papillote

Husband is a fisherman.  He truly loves to fish.  In fact he’s spent the majority of his life either fishing or wishing he was fishing.  So I love it when I am able to make him dinner featuring fish that awes him.

When we scored the best looking red snapper straight from the gulf coast at Farmer’s Market, I knew I had to come up with something special for this fisherman of mine.  I’ve cooked en papillote before and thought it would be the perfect technique for our snapper supper.  En papillote is just a fancy term for cooking in parchment paper.

To make this recipe you’ll need to make a romesco sauce.  You can make this sauce in advance and keep it in the fridge for a week.  When you are shopping for fish if your market doesn’t have fresh red snapper ask your fish monger to suggest a good recommendation for this recipe.  Husband gave me The Big Book of Fish & Shellfish for Christmas and I adapted this recipe to work with snapper.  So, don’t worry if you can’t find snapper.  This is a very versatile recipe.

Gulf Red Snapper En Papillote

Parchment paper

Butter for greasing parchment paper

1 lb red snapper, cut into 3 -4 fillets

2 shallots, minced

1/4 cup fresh chives, chopped

Kosher salt and fresh ground black pepper to taste

8 ounces lump crabmeat (optional)  I had crabmeat so I tossed it in, but it’s not necessary

Isn’t the snapper gorgeous?  I had just under a pound.  If you are buying fish from a market, go ahead and have your monger cut smaller sized fillets.

Tear off three to four (one for each snapper fillet) generous sized pieces of parchment paper.  Trace a half heart just like you were going to make a valentine. This is a great activity to get kids involved in the preparation.

Once you have your parchment hearts made, butter the entire surface generously with a stick of room temperature butter.

Place each fillet on a parchment heart and top with shallots, chives, salt and pepper.

Add a generous amount of romesco sauce and crab meat, if you choose.

At the point of the heart, begin folding and overlapping the parchment paper so that you create an almost air-tight seal all the way around the fish.

When you have all of your fish en papillote, place the packages on a baking sheet and bake for 10 -12 minutes at 475 degrees.

If you want to please a fisherman in your life or if you just want to make a delicious and easy fish supper, you need to try this! It’s simple, healthy and the thrill of tearing open the fish en papillote will surely cause smiles around your table.  The taste of the fresh fish in the savory romesco sauce will delight too!