February 27
Fish in a Packet

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- Asian-Style Baked Fish Packages [View Recipe]
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Ingredients
- 1 bundle cellophane noodles
- 1 large carrot (scrubbed)
- 2 medium scallions
- 8 spears baby corn (rinsed)
- 1 1-inch piece ginger
- 1 clove garlic
- 2 tablespoons soy sauce
- 2 teaspoons sesame oil
- 1 tablespoon lemon juice
- 2 teaspoons oil
- 1.5 pounds fish (rinsed and patted dry)
- red pepper flakes
- cilantro (cleaned)
Instructions
We begin by preheating the oven to <temp val="450"/>. We put our teakettle, filled with water, on high heat and place the bundle of cellophane noodles in a medium bowl. When the water is almost at a boil, we pour the hot water over the noodles to cover. We set this aside while we prepare the vegetables.
We peel and trim our carrot and then grate with the coarse side of our 4-sided grater. This yields about 1 cup of carrots, which we place on a large dinner plate. We rinse and trim our scallions and then slice. We put these on the plate as well, with the whole baby corn spears.
In a prep bowl, we get ready our sauce ingredients. We rinse, pat dry, and then peel our ginger with our chef's knife. Using the microplane, we grate the ginger directly into the prep bowl. We also put our garlic clove into a garlic press and press this into the bowl as well. We stir in the soy sauce, sesame oil, and lemon juice, and set aside.
The cellophane noodles have softened so we drain and rinse them with cold water. With kitchen scissors, we cut up the noodles into smaller pieces.
We take four large pieces of aluminum foil and fold each of them in half to make an approximate 12 x 12 inch square. We divide the canola oil between them, smearing the oil onto the center of each square. We top each with some of the cellophane noodles, carrots, scallions, and corn. We spoon on about half of the sauce, divided between the four portions. We top each with a fillet of fish and then spoon on the rest of the sauce and sprinkle with the red pepper flakes.
We fold the foil into airtight packages and place on a cookie sheet. We bake for 20 minutes until the fish is cooked through, the vegetables are tender, and the noodles have absorbed the wonderful flavors of the sauce and fish. We carefully open the packages and transfer to dinner plates. We serve garnished with cilantro.
The kids loved this meal. Not so much for the taste of the meal, which was different, and thus not as palatable as chicken fingers. Rather, they liked the meal because they made their own fish packets. Both got to pick and choose what ingredients to put on the fish. Robin handled the fish, but let the kids do whatever else they liked.
Still no baby. We've settled into a holding pattern here where it doesn't really feel like she'll be born anytime soon. Robin still has regular contractions, but nothing to the point that birth seems imminent. Maybe Chris will get his wish and the baby will be born on February 29th after all!