Steam with esteem en papillote: lazy cooking mood on

Fancy but it is a space eater, if you have a small kitchen	Practical but ugly
It tends to get mouldy	I personally favour this one

Just to show off a little bit

There are at least three ways to deal with steam in cuisine: the first one is having either a bamboo, a glass or steel steamer, the second having an electric steamer, the last one is cooking en papillote, that is wrapping your desired food in aluminum foil and exploiting its natural humidity. In addition, you can spice up your recipe with flavorsome olive oil, organic lemon and fresh herbs! 

HOW DOES IT LOOK LIKE

FIRST OBSERVATIONS

Advantages: 

1. you do not dirt any casserole;

1- 1/2. you can prepare it in advance or even frozen it;

2. it does not take more than 25 minutes to cook for fish, or 40 minutes for a chicken thigh, 20 minutes for chopped vegetables all at 200 °C;

2- 1/2. if you feel lazy it really takes the time of a long shower or mail check;

3. you can cook more than one papillote at a time;

4. guests are usually impressed by the taste and the absence of excessive smell in the living room.

Disadvantages:

1. guests will ask for more, because it is QUITE LOW IN CALORIES;

2. the food tastes better when you serve it straight away from the oven;

3. you do not have to break the foil;

4. if you spoil it, it is better to get a regular dinner deal with your local restaurant!

"PLEASE SIR, I WANT SOME MORE"
(C. DICKENS, DAVID COPPERFIELD)

IN ADDITION

Which are the major benefits? You keep all the nutrients inside what you are cooking. Secondly, you can season less, so, as a consequence, you add less calories to what you are eating. Thirdly the texture of your preparation will appear more genuine and you will have less kitchenware to clean. Lastly, especially for vegetables, the colours will remain vibrant, a sort of visual crispiness. Let’s move to some eye-sizing examples: 

• duck pullet;
• chicken with vegetables; 
• sea bream with vegetables;
• vegetarian couscous.

Duck pullet with herbs	Duck pullet with a disk of lemon underneath
Chiken with vegetables	Sea bream with a rose of vegetables

Here I'm cheating a bit, using a moroccan tajine: my sister brought me some cumin from Istambul! I was spoiled!

Final result: add couscous only during the last 5 mins of the cooking process.

In general, just make sure you are using an extremely nice extra-virgin olive oil and you will enoble with it the humbleness of your dish. Usually, we link the idea of taste to elaborateness. It can be true for some preparations, yet it is false for the majority: BRING OUT THE NATURAL FLAVOR. Now that I am working in a restaurant – experience I’ll treat in this blog as soon as it will be over – I can see how much waste and tastelessness there can be on both sides, that of pseudo-chef and that of customers (a thing very sad to state!)

With beetroots you can give a nice distinctive sweet taste
and a purple pigment to the meat! Dare trying!

Quite often I see too richly dressed dishes, killing and covering, under shrouds of cream, the actual taste of things: this preparation allows you to bring forward the true taste of ingredients with a lazy cooking mood on!