Chicken in a bag - Cooking en Papillote

This my instructable on cooking food wrapped in parchment, particularly the french term "En Papillote".  This method is great for crowds, especially unexpected guest that drop by.  Case in point, this instructable was totally unplanned.  Suddenly I found myself cooking for 8 adults and 4 picky kids, aaaah.  Then I remembered the parchment bags I bought earlier, grabbed my camera and whatever I had in the fridge, IE the ingredients on the ingredient list. 15 minutes later and it was in the oven.  Fed everyone till they were stuffed, even the picky kids. 

A note on picky kids, they actually have more taste buds then adults.  As we grow older we loose our taste buds, enabling us to enjoy foods that as a child would have been to strong or bitter.  They postulate that back in the day, this protected the cave babies/kids from ingesting items that were potentially toxic for a person of that mass.

Cooking food in a bag is just another way to steam food, keeping all the nutrients locked in the food rather then boiling them off.  It has the added benefits of melding flavours and aromas together yet each food cooked within maintains their original nature.  This recipe is using chicken breast and vegetables but could easily be adapted to cooking seafood, pork tenderloin, beef tenderloin is out of this world, incredibly buttery and delicate.  Th key is to have a rough understanding of the foods cooking times in relation to size.  A delicate tilapia fillet would need  root vegetables like potato cut a little smaller so everything would be ready at the same time.  As opposed to pork tenderloin or chicken breast, you can get away with cutting the veg larger. Traditionally one would use parchment paper folded end over end like one would wrap deli meat.  But, with the advent of pre-made parchment bags, it makes this dish fool proof.  One can use brown lunch bags as well but you must drop the temperature a bit.  Parchment is good to about 450 degrees, even though I have used them in our bread oven at 600 degrees.  If you haven't used parchment paper before you have to try it to believe it.  Use it to stop cookies from burning, lining a roast pan, heck we even fried eggs in a pan lined with it for butter free no stick.  And no, I don't work for some parchment producing company.  Restaurant use it exclusively just to save on cooking times and clean up.

Awesome perks to bag cooking

• Very little cleanup
• Low waste
• Adaptability
• Incredible flavours and aroma's
• ooooh aaaah eeeeh presentation
• Quick cooking times
• Quick prep
• Healthy
• low maintenance, bake and forget forgivability

Step 1 Ingredients and tools-O-trade

Ingredients for 8-10 hungry people

• 8 carrots peeled and chopped 3/4" chunks
• 6 yellow potatoes skin on, 1" cubes
• 1-2 sweet peppers 1/2" chopped
• 2-3 stalks of celery including the leaves 1/2" chunks
• 2 lemons
• 8-10 chicken breasts cut into 1" x 2" chunks
• 1-2 sprigs of fresh rosemary
• 1 tablespoon each of salt, sugar & pepper
• 1/8 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 onions coarsely chopped
• about 1/2 cup of liquid - you could use wine, chicken stock, apple juice, cider etc...

Tools:

• Oven set at 425 degrees
• Cookie sheet
• Flippers, tongs knives, cutting surface
• Hot surface retrieval device - aka oven mitts
• Parchment cooking bags.  You can also use regular parchment paper.  Ingredients are mounded in the middle of the paper, edges folded over and tucked under to seal.

Comments

[Leixa]

NOM NOM NOM

[iminthebathroom]

Hey you, I know you, nom nom nom haha