Rachel Khoo: Packs a punch

I was in Wales recently for the Big Welsh Bite festival at which I was performing cookery demonstrations, one of them being a ‘papillote’ demo. Don’t be put off by the French word, cooking using a papillote is even easier than counting to five in French. It’s simply a folded paper parcel that seals in all the flavours during cooking. The aromas are only released when you open it at the dining table, making for a feast for all the senses. You can make almost anything in a papillote, sweet or savoury, but my favourite thing to cook is seafood, which lends itself particularly well to this way of steaming, as it makes it hard to overcook delicate ingredients.

Seafood papillote

Serves one

1 heaped tsp tomato purée

½ clove of garlic, finely chopped

1 tbsp olive oil

A pinch of sugar

A pinch of espelette pepper or chilli powder

A handful of mussels, cleaned and de-bearded

A couple of large, raw prawns

50g fillet of fish of your choice, skinned and cut into chunks

100g express rice (pre-cooked)

6 cherry tomatoes, halved

1 baby courgette, chopped into thin slices

A handful of black olives, destoned

1 spring onion, finely chopped

Preheat the oven to 180C/Gas Mark 4. Mix the tomato purée, garlic, olive oil, sugar and espelette pepper with a pinch of salt in a large bowl. Add all the other ingredients except the green parts of the spring onion. Toss together. Cut a large rectangle of baking paper. Place the seafood mix in the middle. Bring the edges of the paper together and fold over to form a sealed parcel. Use kitchen string to tie each end. Bake for 10-15 minutes. The mussels should be open, the prawns pink and the fish translucent when it’s ready to eat. Serve with the rest of the spring onion sprinkled on top.