Parchment-Cooked Fish with Morels, Spring Garlic, and Thyme

Description

A rather simple recipe that tastes like it took all day. Use Pacific halibut, striped bass, tilapia, or other sustainable white-fleshed fish.

Ingredients

  • 1 pound fresh morel mushrooms
  • salt and ground black pepper to taste
  • 4 (6 ounce) Pacific halibut fillets
  • 1 ½ teaspoons butter
  • ½ cup chopped garlic scapes
  • 5 sprigs fresh thyme, leaves stripped and chopped
  • 1 tablespoon canola oil, or as needed
  • 4 12×20-inch pieces of parchment paper

Instructions

  1. Preheat oven to 350 degrees F (175 degrees C).
  2. Place morel mushrooms in a dry skillet over medium heat and sprinkle with salt and black pepper. Cook
  3. stirring often
  4. until the mushrooms release their juice and the juice evaporates
  5. about 5 minutes.
  6. Sprinkle halibut fillets with salt and black pepper on both sides.
  7. Heat butter in a large skillet over medium-low heat and cook the halibut fillets until golden brown on the outside
  8. about 2 minutes per side. Remove fish from skillet and set aside.
  9. Cook and stir garlic scapes in the same skillet used to cook fish until fragrant
  10. about 1 minute. Remove pan from heat and stir morel mushrooms and thyme with the garlic scapes until combined.
  11. Fold a piece of parchment paper in half crosswise. Use scissors to cut a very large valentine-like heart shape out of the folded paper
  12. as large as possible. Repeat with remaining parchment to make 4 large heart shapes.
  13. Open the heart shapes; brush right sides of the hearts with canola oil.
  14. Place 1/4 morel mushroom mixture in the left (unoiled) half of each heart. Place a halibut fillet on the mushroom mixture. Sprinkle fish with salt and black pepper.
  15. Fold the oiled right half of the heart over the fish. Fold about 1/4 inch of parchment paper over
  16. starting at the rounded end
  17. and work your way down to the point
  18. folding as you go. Fold the edge over a second time to enclose fish and mushrooms in a bundle with a double-folded
  19. sealed edge.
  20. Leave about 1/4 inch of the bottom point unfolded.
  21. Use a straw inserted into the open bottom to blow air into the bundle
  22. making it puff up like a small balloon. Twist the bottom closed to enclose the air.
  23. Place parchment bundles on 2 baking sheets; don’t let the bundles touch each other.
  24. Bake in the preheated oven until fish is no longer translucent in the center
  25. about 15 minutes.
  26. To serve
  27. plate each portion and carefully cut open the parchment to reveal the fish
  28. mushrooms
  29. and juices. Bundle will release hot steam when opened.

Prep Time: 30 mins

Cook Time: 30 mins

Total Time: 1 hr

Servings: 4

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