Recipe 6 - Seafood Entrees - Halibut Cheeks en Papillote

This is a recipe that I would have never tackled had it not been for this project. First of all, what the heck does en papillote mean? And second of all, are halibut cheeks really fish cheeks?

To answer the first, en papillote means in French “in parchment.” Instead of parchment paper, other materials such as aluminum foil or cooking plastic bags may also be used. Foil or plastic do not have the fanfare that the parchment paper does, but can be easier, quicker, and just as effective. Because I’ve been trying to stick to the directions as closely as possible and it didn’t seem right to cheat on my very first encounter with en papillote, I purchased the parchment paper and tried my best to seal the pouches. After I had already made my pouches, I then did some online research to see just how badly I had implemented this French cooking technique. My pouches looked more like parchment paper burritos rather than the elegant, delicately folded pouches that I found online. If you are a newbie to this technique and ever decide to give it a try, I’d recommend watching this instructional video where the chef shows how he folds the pouch and also the cheat about using egg white to act as a glue or seal at the edges.

In my attempt, I cut the paper properly – a big heart shape. It was the folding the tripped me up. When I folded the paper over and started to fold the edges, it wasn’t forming a tight seal. From watching the video, I figured out that the folds at the edge need to be smaller and more frequent and then the egg white provides some assurance that the packet will seal once it gets heated up. I started off well with the heart shaped parchment paper:

But didn't do so well with the sealing. I ended up with parchment burritos instead of pouches:

Now as to the contents of the pouch, I needed to find halibut cheeks. Halibut cheeks are just that – the cheeks of a halibut. I guess they have a fleshy face that allows a cut of an elliptical sized piece of fish that is about 1.5 inches in diameter. Here is a diagram showing that halibut cheeks are indeed fish cheeks:

Image Credit

And what they look like at the point of sale:

Image Credit

J and I picked up 1.5 pounds from Jack’s Fish Spot. They are spendy but not a bank breaking splurge at $12.00 per pound.

As an afternote, the house still smells fishy about five days after making this recipe. Even though the cheeks were incredibly fresh, there is something about baking this dish that infuses the home with fishy smells. I thought it was a tasty dish and less time consuming to prepare than I initially thought, but I would have to think twice about preparing it a second time, mostly due to its lasting presence!