Our July 2012 Daring Cooks’ host was Sarah from All Our Fingers in the Pie! Sarah challenges us to learn a new cooking technique called “Cooking En Papillote” which is French and translates to “cooking in parchment”.
As I already said in my Baked Feta post (the first of the recipes I created this month), I was really excited about this challenge! This cooking method is very common in Italy and I very often use it for cooking fish, vegetables and other food (see my Snapper en papillote or my recipe for Chicken liver parcels). So this time I challenged myself to use this method on something different, something I had never made before. After successfully trying my hands at cooking cheese en papillote, I set on a mission to cook… fruits! I love baked fruits, but I never even thought of cooking it en papillote. The result was amazing! The fruit was nicely baked but still juicy and naturally sweet. In fact, this is quite a healthy recipe (especially, if you omit the vanilla ice cream on the top, even though I used a light ice cream, so it was not that bad ;-P). I did not add any sugar as I used some apple juice to cook the fruits with, and that combined with the natural sweetness of the fruits, made the final dish sweet enough. You can use any fruits that will retain their colour and consistency during baking, so don’t limit yourself to the list below. I think it makes a great end of meal (both served as fruits or as a dessert if topped with ice cream), especially in the cooler months as it is best when served warm. Enjoy and thank you so much Sarah for such a fantastic challenge!!!
Fruit Salad en Papillote - Macedonia al Cartoccio
How to make a quick, easy, delicious and healthy dessert: fruit salad en papillote
Ingredients
- 1 apple peeled and chopped
- 1 pear peeled and chopped
- 1 banana peeled and sliced
- 2 mandarins
- 1 ½ tbsp pineapple pieces fresh or canned
- 1 tbsp raisins
- 6 prunes pitted
- 150 ml - 2/3 cup apple juice
- 2 cloves
- ½ cinnamon stick
- Vanilla ice cream to serve optional – I used light vanilla ice cream to keep it healthy
Instructions
-
Put the apple juice, cloves and cinnamon stick in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and simmer for 5 minutes to slightly reduce it. Put the fire off, add the raisins and pitted prunes and keep it aside to cool down.
-
In the meantime, peel, core and cut all the fruits. Cut 4 pieces of parchment paper big enough to contain ¼ of the fruits each. Take 4 cups and put 1 sheet of parchment paper in each of the cups. This will make it easier to prepare the parcels. Divide the fruits among the parchment paper filled cups. Add the raisins and prunes and top with the clove and cinnamon infused apple juice. Create 4 little parcels and close them with some string.
-
Bake in a pre heated oven at 180°C – 355°F for about 20 minutes (the time can slightly vary depending on how big you cut your fruits or on how ripe the fruit was).
-
Serve it warm in the individual parcels (unwrap them at the table) and top with some vanilla ice cream (optional).
Recipe Notes
If your parchment paper is not thick enough, make 8 pieces and use 2 per person.
You can remove the cloves and cinnamon before adding the juice to the fruits if you like. I usually keep them in for presentation only.
I love the varity and combination of fruits you used Manu and the idea of infusing the apple juice with the spices is pure genious
Great job as always on this challenge
This is so creative! I love that you made a dessert!
What a great idea to bake fruit like this…a great healthy dessert!
I love to grill and bake fruits but have never done them en papillote which sounds like the perfect way to cook fruit. The enclosed parchment keeps the moisture in making the fruits juicy and succulent. Thanks for sharing this. I can’t wait to try this method with fruit.
I love the look of that with the spices. It must save on dishes too if you can eat it out of individual packages.
Manu, baking fruits in the parchment is an interesting thing! And you did it very well…yes, it is a very healthy and tasty recipe at the same time! Loved this!! And congratulations on being included in Babble’s Top 100 food blogs. Well done, my friend!
This looks really fantastic. I swear I can almost smell it.
Have never used fruit en papillote: thank you for the fantastic idea and the photos that just want to make one copy 🙂 !
Very interesting recipe! I love fruit and especially prones, I am sure I would enjoy it a lot 🙂
che carini questi pacchetti!
Despite my remarks in my last comment, I’ve only seen seafood cooked in this manner so I’m glad you’ve opened my eyes to other ingredients.
I just found you today after all these months. I love your version of al cartoccio. Fabulous!