How to Cook in Paper

Featured Pro: Curtis Stone
Category: Cooking
Time: 4:19


CURTIS STONE: I wanted to share this cooking technique with you because I know you’re going to love it. It’s a really, really healthy way to cook and it’s super tasty.

What you do is you start off with a piece of this stuff, parchment paper. And I just trim it into, funnily enough, the shape of a heart. So you end up with half a heart. And then when you open it, you get a full heart. What you do with the heart is you put the food inside here, and we’re going to seal the paper up and you’re going to cook it in a bag. All right, now, if you want to get a fancy one, you could get one with foil on one side and paper on the other, but I think this is just as easy and just as good.

You take some ingredients like some veggies. I’ve got some carrots, some green onions, a few onions or shallots, a little bit of ginger. Okay, so I’m going to go for some Asian ingredients for this, a couple of pieces of bok choy – I’m going to put that on there – and then some shrimp. So I’ll take a little handful of shrimp and put that on. Now, don’t put too much food in the center, because we still have to package it up.

All right, then what we do is we fold it over the top. We’re going to put some liquid, but we’ll do that in just a minute. And I’ve got some sesame oil, some Chinese rice wine and a little bit of soy sauce. All right, so you fold over the other side of your heart, and I’m just going to fold in just little folds the paper over each other, keeping your hand here so that the whole time you’re sort of sealing it up.

All right, so we’re going to continue on with these folds all the way around. It’s kind of an interesting way to cook. It’s a bit of a mixture of cooking and origami. You just continue to do this, although it doesn’t take long. And if you’re cooking with kids, kids actually really enjoy the process.

So once you get in down here and you see that you’re nearly going to feel it, don’t forget your liquid. Take some of that Chinese rice wine and pour that in; not too much, like a tablespoon; a little bit of toasted sesame oil, like just a drop, and then a little bit of soy, a couple of tablespoons of that as well.

Okay, now if you don’t want to use Asian ingredients, you could use white wine. You could use a little bit of stock, whatever you like. Even some fruit juice is nice. You continue the sort of folding motion until you get to the end, and you fold that over like that.

Okay, so that is our papillote, our cushion. Then what you do is you get yourself a hot tray from the oven, one that’s been preheating, and you’re going to drop this onto the hot tray. The heat is going to turn that liquid that we put in there instantly into steam, and it’s going to start to steam it straight away in the bag. So you’ll see as soon as this paper goes onto the hot tray – feel that? That all starts to puff up, because what’s happening is the liquid that we put inside that bag is starting to turn into steam and it’s starting to expand, which means everything in there is going to be steaming in its own juices. Delicious. Such a healthy way to cook.

Now it goes into the oven. Okay, so once it’s been in for about five or six minutes, the shrimp cook really quick. If you’re going to serve a piece of fish, it’s going to take a little bit longer. You feel the bag’s gotten a little bit crispy. The way to serve it, in my opinion, is to serve it just in the paper. So I’ll put that into a nice big dish, something like this, and literally serve it in the paper just like that.

And then when it comes to serving it at the table, just tear the center of the paper out and see all that beautiful steam escape. Oh, it smells so good. It’s so healthy, because you don’t have to put any oil. You can cook literally in their own juices of what it is that you’re cooking, and a little bit of white wine or some soy. Yum. Let me have a taste. So I like to serve it just in the paper. But, of course, you could pour it out onto a plate if you like.

I’m Curtis Stone, and that’s your GMC Trade Secret.