Cooking en Papillote

A technique easy for everyone, which can bring you the satisfaction of a grand Chef. When everyone of your guest will open his Papillote, a tresure of aromas will come out.


What is cooking en Papillote ?

Cooking en Papillote consist in preparing your food inside of an aluminum foil or inside of a greaseproof paper. The Papillote is hermetically closed with for example a cooking string. The Papillote can be placed inside of an oven pan or inside of a stream oven. The food will then cook thanks to their own steam.

The Papillote has to be tighly closed for the juice to stay inside. You will need to use a dripping pan, to collect what gets out of the leaks.
The goal here is to cook the food the fastest possible to preserve the vitamins and minerals, so it could be necessary to finely chop your vegetables for example.


The pros :

You don't need to add butter or oil even if it is delicious to add some olive oil to add a great taste for some recipes. Cooking like this is very healthy and easy to digest.
The taste of the ingredients are 10 times stronger so it is not necessary to salt them a lot.
This form of cooking allow to preserve the maximum of minerals and vitamins contained inside of the cooking juice.

The cons :

The food doesn't brown like in a pan for example so it is less crunchy and pretty (with the chicken for example).
Also, it is difficult to cook big ingredients.
Finally, if you cook the food longer, you may loose some vitamins which are heat sensitive like A, C, B1, B5, B6, B9

What to cook :

You can cook raw food or food that you brown just before in a pan.
The time of the cooking will be different depending on the ingredients, but the temperature of the oven must always be higher than 200 ºC / 390º F
For vegetables or fruits, it will take just a few minutes, for fish, 40 to 45 minutes and for meat, you will need to cook them for at least 1h30.
To reduce the time of cooking a meat, you can use a marinade for 30 minutes like in a mix of vinagar, citrus fruits juice, soy sauce, spices, herbs, oils ... depending on the recipe. This way, the flavor at the end of the cooking are gonna be fantastic.


How to proceed :

First, it is important that the Papillote is well closed and the paper that you use has to be hermetic for the steam to form. Don't hesitate using a cooking string.

Then, it is important to keep in mind that the quantity of juice is to be controlled. Too much juice can weaken the Papillote and worst, it can boil the food inside. So don't use more than one or two tablespoon of lemon juice or sour cream, olive oil or wine etc.
For an ingredient which produce a lot of juice, you can place aside some potatoes, that will absorb the excess. Don't hesitate to pierce the Papillote if the dish produces too much juice.

To proceed, once you cut the paper, brush some oil on it. Always put the vegetable first and the fish or the meat on top if them.
Then, season well, (salt pepper, spices, creams, oils...) Close it well and put it on a dripping pan. If placed on the grill, the paper may pierce. When placed on a dripping pan, put some water on the pan, for the Papillote not to grip and pierce.

For a very dry food, add 1 to 2 tablespoon of liquid (lemon juice, wine, oil ....) and spice it well (herbs, peppers, ginger, spices ....)

It is also preferable to use a greaseproof paper rather than an aluminum foil, (the heat is well diffuse and doesn't escape the same.

Be careful. When you open the Papillote, the heat is very high because of the steam. You could get burnt.

Be creative on the contents. Anything goes. Stuffed vegetables, tomatoes-mozza, curry chicken, fruits ... 

Once out of the oven :

Not only this technique preserve fantastically the flavor of the ingredients but it is also a great decoration for your dishes. You may present it opened with nice herbs to decorate what is inside, or you may just bring it closed to your guest for a great effect when they'll open it (an explosion of aromas).

Need some great ideas ?

You can use some boursin (garlic herbed cheese) on top of a piece of salmon. Or you may use the rest of your vegetables with some feta...

A great idea; the egg Papillote. To prepare it, use a little bowl, that you cover with some greaseproof paper, break the egg inside, add some sour cream, close the paper with a string, take the paper out of the bowl, and place it in the oven. Within a few minutes, it is cooked and delicious.

Another great idea, is to use fruits. Like with the egg, use a little bowl to prepare he shape of the Papillote, place some frozen fruits, add a little bit of honey, some chocolate and add some butter cookies that you mashed before. At the end of the cooking, you may want to add a scoop of ice cream. It is gonna be amazing.

We will cover some recipes using this technique in some following recipes to give you some other great ideas.