Mix & Match Foil-Packet Fish

There are around 3 more than Tim picked from The Food Network Cookbook.  After that, I will probably make some from the new one I got for my birthday plus after that I have two or more on my Christmas Wishlist.

This one is a quick, easy one with very few rules.  Fish and vegetables and a sauce, in foil, in the oven.  Steams everything and voila. 

Start by picking out four 6-ounce skinless salmon fillets, striped bass, halibut, or cod.  Or, you could go with 1/1/2 lbs. large shrimp, peeled and deveined or 3 pounds cleaned mussels.  We went with the......uh, oh.....it was either the halibut or cod.  I forgot to take pictures of this along the way, so the first thing you see are my vegetable selections.  Choose 2 vegetables (1/2 cup of each) per packet.  You can choose boiled potato chunks, fresh corn kernels, thawed frozen lima beans, halved cherry tomatoes, 1 inch scallion pieces, thinly sliced yellow squash, thinly sliced red onion, thinly sliced mushrooms, thinly sliced celery, thinly sliced leeks or shaved carrots.  We went with the boiled potatoes first.

We also chose the thinly sliced mushrooms.  I tried out the new chopping thing I got from As Seen on TV but it pretty much butchered the mushrooms.  They still tasted good.  The picture is sideways because this website doesn't rotate.  I'll try and fix it later.

 Preheat the oven to 450.  Lay out a large sheet of heavy-duty foil for each packet.  Mound 1 cup vegetables in the center of each, season with salt and pepper and top with a sprig of parley or basil.  I forgot the sprig. Put a fish fillet or portion of seafood on top of the vegetables, season with salt and pepper and drizzle with olive oil.  Add a splash of water or white wine (I used water but should have used the wine for more flavor).  Fold up the ends of the foil and seal into packets, leaving room for steam.  Put the packets on a baking sheet and bake until just cooked through, about 12 minutes for the fillets and shrimp and 15 for mussels.  Let sit about 5 minutes and then carefully open the packets and add your topping.

That is what the foil packets looked like.  Now, for the topping.  You have three choices:  citrus-basil oil, fennel spice blend, or spicy chipotle butter.  We chose the first. 

 Cook 10 basil leaves in salted boiling water, about 10 seconds, drain and run under cold water, then squeeze dry.  Puree the basil with 1/2 cup olive oil, 1 tablespoon orange juice and a pinch each of sugar and salt in a blender.

This is my basil plant.  It has seen better days, but we have had it for years (it was like 3.50 at the grocery store) and I use the leaves allll the time.  Such a deal. 

This is what it looked like.  It was good, but....and here is my rant about salt.  Salt is pretty bad for you but we all eat a LOT of it.  Chefs LOVE it.  My feeling is that food should be given a lot of flavor with spices and herbs and that chefs use waaaay too much salt.  But, things tend to taste flavorless to us without it, unless you get used to it.  This recipe definately needed something because I went so light on the salt.  We sprinkled some lemon pepper on at the end, but it still needed more pizzazz (although we did like it).  Here is the way you make the spicy chipotle butter-  Pulse 1/2 stick softened butter, 1 minced chipotle pepper in adobo sauce, the juice of 1/2 line, 1/2 teaspoon grated lime zest and 1/4 teaspoon salt in a food processor, or mash with a wooden spoon.  Also, a different choice of vegetables might be good.