Fish – In – A – Bag!
The most common question asked of me by friends is this – “what’s a quick, easy, healthy, and delicious dinner I can have after work tonight?” What do you guys think I am, Rachael ray? Well guess what!? You’re all in luck! I am on a diet since summer starts in a week or 2 here in Bermuda (Even though actual Bermudians refuse to go to the beach until May 25th) So I will have some healthy weeknight dinners up here in the next few weeks. Now don’t worry, they won’t all be healthy. I have a few posts I made pre-dieting that I am waiting to post. I’m rambling, so without further a due, my FAVORITE fast easy delicious and super-ancient-whole-grain-run-a-mile-punch-a-baby-healthy meal! Fish-in-a-bag! Some of my friends right now are saying “Fish? Really?I mean… I don’t really like fish.” To you I say shut up and make this and you will LOVE it. Unless you mess it up somehow which you probably will. Jeez my friends are dumb… just kidding friends!
This is Quinoa. Pronounced KEEN-wah. Its fun to say, no? it has been important in food for 6,000 years since Incas used to make gruel out of it!A closer look. The white part is the seed and the darker ring around it is called the germ.
I’ve added salt and pepper and some cayenne. You could add butter but we are being healthy right? Bring this to a boil, then cover and simmer for about 15 min (that’s it? This IS quick and easy!)
This is what it looks like when cooked and fluffed up with a
fork
Notice the seed has separated from the germ, that’s what you are looking for.
you can really use whatever veggies you have around (just like you can use whatever rice or grain instead of quinoa or whichever fish was the freshest at the store) our favorites for this dish are pepper, asparagus, and red onion.
Make the red onion really thin.
Salt and pepper the fish. Be generous. This is halibut, also our fave for this application, but as I said before you can use whatever fish looks best that day or what you like the most.
Put some of the cooled quinoa on to a large piece of parchment paper.
We like to stand the fish up because the halibut seems to cook better.
As you can see, we have cut the veggies to be about the same size and arranged them like so.
Onions on top and then squeeze half a lemon on.
And a couple sprigs of whatever fresh herb you feel
like. We used thyme here, but I usually
get oregano if they have it fresh.
MMMM I’m ready to
eat!
Ok time to seal it up.
Fold the paper over the fish
Tightly sealed and crimped and put on the baking pan. The oven was preheated to 400 and we cooked this for 12 minutes. Other fish will be different but the good thing about the bag is if you over cook it a little, it isn’t a big deal. The bag is steaming the fish rather then baking it so it is a little more flexible and comes out juicy, flakey, and awesome!
Now here is the big payoff we have all been waiting for!
Oh yea!
Make sure to stick your face into the steam and take a big
whiff.
There is the other one.
Perfectly cooked, flaky, juicy, delicious! Take out the herbs before eating.
Fish – In – A – Bag!
Ingredients
- 1 Cup Quinoa
- Salt Pepper, and Cayenne
- 2 Filets Halibut
- 1 Bell Pepper
- 10 Asparagus
- 1/2 A Small Red Onion
- Lemon
- Thyme or Oregano
Instructions
- Put quinoa and 2 cups water into pot. Bring to a boil. Add salt pepper and dash of cayenne. Cover and simmer 15 min. fluff and transfer to bowl and allow to cool.
- Preheat oven to 400. Cut asparagus and pepper to matching sizes. Thinly slice onion Put Quinoa on large piece of parchment, place salt and peppered halibut on top. Line up asparagus and pepper pieces on each side of fish leaning toward it. Place thin onion slices on top. Then add fresh herbs. Squeeze half a lemon on. Seal up parchment so it forms a pouch crimping all sides. Bake for 12 min.
omg i can’t wait to try this one! good job guys 😉
Nicely done – I’m big on parchment for cooking fish, but it never occurred to me to use quinoa as an underpinning. A toast to you for that, and thanks!
So I just wanted to let you know that although you’re trying to be healthy quinoa has soooooooooo many more calories than other types of grains and starches
One cup of cooked quinoa has 626 calories
http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-quinoa-i20035
One cup of cooked white rice has 205 calories
http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-rice-white-long-grain-regular-i20045
One cup of cooked couscous has 176 calories
http://caloriecount.about.com/calories-couscous-cooked-i20029
So yeah you can have a huge pile of couscous or rice dripping in butter for the calorie cost one cup of quinoa has
Quinoa is more nutritionally complete than practically any other grain ,especially bleached grains. Calories aren’t all that matter on a diet. Also…. Eat this. Don’t Change it. Go exercise. Stop counting calories.
calories shmalories.
0 (ZERO) saturated fat + oodles of nutrients = calories that matter. To presume that quinoa is inferior to white rice (WHITE RICE??) because of calories is like calling ketchup a vegetable.
Excellent recipe and technique – makes me want to attack my fish cowardice.
You meant, calling ketchup a fruit, because tomatoes are a fruit, not a vegetable.
Try to be accurate before flaming others.
Also I cant see why everyone is raving about this recipe. No offence to the author, but I’ve regurgitated better looking food. Presentation is proven to be an important part of a meal and even reflected in the taste.
hmmm. no offense? I fail to understand how in any context it could be not offensive to say that you have puked better looking food than someone made.
Why aren’t you wearing pants?
Great recipe however…
Just one question, aren’t you supposed to rinse the quinoa before you cook it? I always rinse it because I had read that it would be bitter if you didn’t. If this is not necessary I would love to skip this step as it is a pain in the butt!
By the wh666 just because you put “no offense” in front of a comment doesn’t make it be less offensive. If you’re going to make a rude comment just make it, don’t try to say “no offense” before it to try and make yourself look better.
Very sad. Someone did all this work and is trying to share what is good for you and pleasant to their taste and people knit picks and condescend to 3rd grade remarks. Such has become “The Simpson’s America.” GREAT JOB on the recipe…great job on the pictures…and thanks tons for sharing this. It truly is wonderful.
Although you are correct about the calories in Quinoa – that number is for one cup of UNCOOKED quinoa. 1/2 cup cooked quinoa has 127 calories. here’s a link: http://www.calorieking.com/foods/calories-in-grains-quinoa-cooked-w-water_f-Y2lkPTEzNjQwJmJpZD0xJmZpZD04Mjk3MiZwYXI9.html
Uh, I watched Simpsons and I don’t attack people like some are here. Do not blame television or other such medias for bad parenting and attitudes.
Looks great. If you ever watch food network, Alton Brown did a huge thing on fish in parchment paper recipes. I’d hit the couscous first, but that’s because I know where to get it cheap by the pound haha.
Also, to that chick that talked about white rice being better .. If you are going the rice route, go brown or wild. Finding good white rice is rather hard now that you can’t find Basmati (sp?) rice anywhere. Or at least I can not. Just your standard bag of white rice isn’t that great for you. You need so many calories a day, even on a diet. Your body needs them. You just need to couple exercise with dieting.
That is why all those diets never work for people. They want something for nothing really.
Man, this looks great. I love quinoa, but rarely have a chance to use it. This looks like it would be great with wild brown rice as well, maybe with some trout. If I was in Michigan, that’d be excellent as all the ingredients would be local!
I love that you included the dishes you’d have to wash – if more recipes had that, though, I may not be as willing to try them.
I made myself hungry talking about wild rice.
Well, after cooking since 1947, this was a well displayed, well constructed effort on old “Food in his Beard” behalf.
I am sorta glad that I am getting closer to my journey’s end when I read comments such as some posted above. What a nincompoop! An old epithet but still relevant when applied to offensive idiots who state No Offense, then proceed to be very offensive!
Cheers, old guy on Vancouver Island BC
by the way, tomatoes are of course vegetable…and fruits. they are the fruits of the tomato-plant (biology) and a vegetable you can cook (cuisine). go google if in doubt 🙂
You rock. Thanks for sharing! I am SO not a fan of peppers and onions, but the whole process just looks fascinating, and I may yet be convinced!
That looks delicious! I can’t wait to try it out tonight after a quick trip to the store.
To the person who wonders about rinsing, I eat quinoa with my oatmeal every day, and I never rinse it. It doesn’t taste bitter to me. Lovely recipe, btw.
Such irony, I had Quinoa today for lunch!!!! I’ve only just been introduced, and it was my first time trying it, but I felt so good after eating-and I had tons of energy afterwards!
For ours, we sauteed garlic and onion in some butter, added the quinoa to the pan for about 5 minutes, then added 2 cups of chicken broth (with cayenne for seasoning…because cayenne rocks)! After you let it go for 15 minutes, fluff that goodness up, and enjoy a moment of pure food genius. I just stumbled this to my husband too…God I love the internet. THANKS!!!!
That looks wonderful! My daughter pointed out your website and this particular dish to me. And yes, we will be trying it very soon!
LETS GO RED SOX!…..LETS GO RED SOX!!!
YANKEES SUCK!!!!
im gonna do this to the trout im headin out to catch right now….
YUM—–>EEEEE!!!
funny wh666, when I first clicked on this and scrolled down, I was intrigued by it because of the pictures. The meal not only sounds delicious and healthy, but its colorful, and quite enticing to the eye with the herbs and vegetables placed on top.
“no offence,” but I’m not sure how you got that your puke looks better.
There’s nothing unhealthy about butter. I think this dish needs some fat, since the fish and the veggies doesn’t contain any.
Butter will make this food even more tasty, and more nutrious.
Any way, it looks great!
I just Stumbled Upon this and it made my mouth water. I can’t wait to try it. Looks delicious!
That looks great! I’ve never tried prepping food in my living room, but im going to from now on. Thanks for the recipe!
get dressed
this recipes looks good, i just convinced my girlfriend to like couscous, i think this will be a good way to introduce fish and quinoa.
btw, fish has healthy oils in it. butter is good on fish, but i am going to try it without first.
I am cracking up at these photos. I love it that you are sitting on a couch or easy chair preparing food on the coffee table. It’s unusual to see somebody’s bare legs in food prep photos. But I will try this recipe. Thanks so much.
i feel the need to clarify, as there have been a number of comments now, i WAS wearing shorts in these pics! just cause i was sitting criss-cross on the couch, you cant see them! haha i am not in the habit of prepping food pant-less
at our old apartment we always used to prep on the coffee table. check out an old post of dan’s to see why!
http://www.thefoodinmybeard.com/2008/08/interactiveapartment.html
who the hell cooks with pants on?
Thanks for this great-looking recipe. I’m trying to incorporate more fish and fibre into a healthier diet – and you covered both bases. I’ll be watching you for more suggestions.
I have some delicious and healthy recipes at my backdoor site:
http://www.ctccomputertraining.com/JanetsRecipes
Ciao,
Janet
Washago, Ontario
I just made this with brown rice & mahi mahi, but everything else the same, and it was great!!! I will definitely be making it again!
I’ve had this page bookmarked for months, and I finally got around to making this today…
Wow. It was delicious. The quinoa went great with the tilapia I used. This is definitely going into my repertoire, and when I have kids, they’re going to love fish and quinoa because of it!
Thanks.
This looks very good.I’m a retired chef (25 years) I use quinoa everyday, usually just mixed with black beans, and cayenne pepper. I think I’ll go to town today and see if I can find some fresh halibut. When I lived in Alaska I had the halibut delivered to my door, but fresh is hard to find here in the Mohave Desert. By the way butter is very good to add in a lot of dishes, the corn oil industry made butter look bad so they could sell more margerine, which is 100% hydrogonated, stick that in your arteries. Have a good one to everyone here—Rev John
Will give this a try looks great!
No offense, but I think this recipe is awesome. I make it whenever I find some cheap, environmentally-friendly fish. I wrap ’em in aluminum foil (because wtf is parchment paper), which seems to work just fine.
Nice use of quinoa! I’ll have to try this with some of the snapper that I have floating around in my deep freeze. If you want other ideas for quinoa, I made some with spinach, lemon and garlic that turned out pretty well.
http://dinnerandaconcert.blogspot.com/2009/08/mediterannian-style-stuff.html
This is one of VERY few recipes involving fish that I actually like! It’s become my staple recipe for when I have guests over and I want to fool them into thinking that I worked really hard to make them a great meal. 🙂
Hm, I wonder where to buy this fun pronounced Quinoa ?
I have heard Quinoa but never really came around to making meals with it. Does it cook fast?
I’ve also heard that we get lots of gas (bloating) when we consume quinoa. Is it true?
I love cooking! I will surely apply this recipe. The pictures posted made me feel hungry. yumm.. such a great site! thank you
this is so interesting, can you post the recipe’s here so that we try it at home, thanks
ASO EVO
Look delicious, but sticking your face in hot steam is NEVER a good idea.
I made this recipe and it was super easy and delicious, and I was especially excited to try it because I recently got diagnosed with celiac disease. BUT! I followed the recipe and didn’t even think to rinse the quinoa, and about half an hour after eating, I got the worst stomach EVER. So quick biology lesson: quinoa has in it a naturally occurring chemical called saponin, which protects it from insects, fungi, etc, and it’s mildly poisonous. While a lot of people don’t usually have reactions to it, some people do! That’s why generally it is recommended that when cooking quinoa, you rinse it until the water runs clear (the saponin causes a soapy foam to form). Rinse your quinoa!