Fish En Papillote a.k.a Fish Baked in Paper

I cooked this dish a few months ago for our 2-in-1 much delayed house warming + birthday party for my sister. I was aiming for a French inspired menu then and having something "en papillote" simply sounds absolutely, complicatedly and perfectly French.  Quite opposite to it's name this dish is very easy to prepare and takes less than 20 minutes to cook.


So En Papillote, in French literally means "in parchment" (thank you wikipedia). It is actually just a method of cooking, where something is wrapped and then baked in the oven.
For this recipe however I used fish mainly because I needed something which will cook fast.


Unfortunately I couldn't remember the type of fish I used when I did this recipe, but you can use absolutely anytime of filet for this. (To anyone who is reading this, assuming there is someone reading this at all..should you recognize the type of fish I used based on the picture please let me know :).

So the recipe,

-Filet of fish, cleaned and sliced to desired portions.


-Fresh Herbs, washed and coarsely chopped (dried will do- should you find it difficult to find fresh ones)
*Parsley
*Tarragon
*Chives


-Fennel Seeds
-Lemon thinly sliced
-Butter cut into cubes
-Salt & Pepper
-Wax paper cut into squares 


Preparation/Assembly:
(This can be done a day ahead)
Fold the square wax paper diagonally to create a triangle. Open the folded paper and position the fillet in the center. Sprinkle the fillet with equal amounts of the herbs and the fennel seeds and place a thin slice of lemon on top. Add a cube of water and sprinkle with a little salt and pepper to taste. 

Seal the wax paper as illustrated and do the same for the rest of the filet. This can be kept overnight on your chiller for baking the next day.


Baking Instructions.
Depending on the size of your filet, this can be cooked in a 180 degree celsius oven for 15-20 minutes.

Serve the fish with the paper and have your guest open the parcels themselves. 
You may serve this as is or you can do as I did and serve it with a pesto sauce. (I cheated and used a store-bought pesto :b) 

Enjoy! This is a no fail dish which will absolutely impress your family & friends.
They look happy don't they? :)

Banoffee Pie Cupcakes

I recently bought Primrose Bakery's cookbook and I am targeting to try all the recipes in the book before 2013 :). 

Here's a recipe for Banoffee Pie Cupcakes topped with Caramel Buttercream Icing which I've recently tried.

For the cupcakes you will need the following ingredients, 

Preheat the oven to 180 degrees celsius. Cream the butter and sugar in a bowl with a hand mixer or a whisk if you don't have one. To cream by the way, simply means to mix the sugar and butter to a point that it looks smooth and fully integrated. 

Once the mixture looks pale and smooth you may add the eggs one at a time, mixing after each addition. 

Add the vanilla extract and beat/whisk again.

Gradually add the flour and the baking powder and beat/whisk again to combine.

Mash the bananas using a fork on separate bowl and add it to the flour mixture.

Pour the mixture on a muffin tray lined with muffin cups.

Bake for 20-25 minutes.

You will need the following for the buttercream icing,

To prepare the icing, mix the butter,milk & brown sugar in a saucepan and cook over high heat. Stirring continuously bring the mixture to a boil. Remove from heat after about a minute of boiling. Stir in half of the icing sugar.

Allow the mixture to cool slightly then add the rest of the icing sugar and the vanilla extract and stir until it thickens.Spread over the cooled cupcakes. 

What I like about this recipe is that the steps are quite easy to follow, no complicated steps to confuse a newbie baker and the ingredients are quite easy to find, however should I try to do this next time I'll probably tweak it a bit to suite my taste...

Test - one,two, three

This is it. I am finally doing it - writing my first entry to my first food blog. Hello World! (Oh yes, that must be the programmer gene in me :b) 

Honestly, it took some time for me to muster enough courage and self-confidence to finally start this, but I guess the only way to know if something would work or fail is to give it a chance to do so.

I'll keep it short & simple for now. 

So there it goes my blog-birthdate entry, my first entry, hopefully one of many.