If you’ve never attempted cooking in parchment, “you should do so now,” said Matt and Ted Lee in The Lee Bros. Charleston Kitchen (Clarkson Potter). The technique “melds flavors in a steamy capsule” and allows fish to cook in its own juices at an even temperature. Besides, it’s easier than it might sound.
The recipe below was inspired by one of our heroes, cookbook author Edna Lewis, a champion of seasonal Southern cooking who worked in our adopted hometown in the 1980s. Soon after she arrived in Charleston, S.C., to serve as chef-in-residence at the historic plantation Middleton Place, she made flounder in parchment a signature dish. The preparation here is “classic Lewis: an almost monastic focus on the purity of a small number of ingredients.” It’s also classic Charleston: In perhaps no other East Coast city are so many residents so devoted to fresh seafood that they’re on a first-name basis with their shrimpers, oystermen, and fishermen. We top the flounder with chainey briar, a wild beach grass. But asparagus works well too.
Recipe of the week
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Flounder in parchment with shaved radish and chainey briar
- 1 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 1 tbsp dry white wine
- 2 tsp white wine vinegar
- 3 radishes, shaved with a vegetable peeler
- 2 oz chainey briar (or about 3 stalks asparagus, shaved lengthwise with a vegetable peeler)
- Four 4- to 6-oz fillets skinless flounder or other white fish, such as sole or snapper
- 3 tbsp unsalted butter, cut into 8 pats
- 1 lemon, cut into 8 slices
- 1 egg white
Preheat oven to 400.
In a shallow bowl, whisk olive oil with white wine, vinegar, and ¼ tsp kosher salt. Add radishes and chainey briar or asparagus, and toss to coat.
For each of the fillets, take a sheet of parchment paper, about 13 by 16 inches, and fold it in half so that it opens like a book, with the seam at the left. Place each fillet inside so that its left edge touches the crease and the fish is centered top to bottom. Season each fillet with 2 pinches salt. Top with 2 pats butter, 2 slices lemon, and a grind of black pepper.
In a bowl, whisk egg white with 1 tbsp water. Brush the three open edges of the bottom layer of each parchment with the wash, close the top layer over the fish again, and press the edges of the parchment to seal. Lift about an inch of the bottom left corner of the parchment and fold it over crisply to form a small triangular fold. Place your index finger in the center of the long edge of that fold to form another triangular fold. Repeat until you’ve sealed up the fish in a half-moon-shaped package.
Place packages on a rimmed baking sheet. Bake for 12 minutes. Remove from oven and let rest for 3 minutes. Transfer to plates and cut open parchment. Working quickly, remove the lemon slices (if desired) and scatter fish with radishes and chainey briar or asparagus. Serves 4.
