How to cook fish in the oven and in a parcel

✅ The essentials

In the oven, fish does not stick, does not tear and does not smell up the kitchen. You lay it in a dish with a drizzle of oil, or you close it in a sheet of baking paper with thinly cut vegetables, and the oven does the rest in fifteen minutes. The parcel steams the fish in its own juices, and it is the safest way not to miss it.

🍳 The method

1. Preheat the oven to 200 °C (400 °F). Salt and pepper the fish.
2. In a dish: the fish on a bed of onion or tomato slices, a drizzle of olive oil, half a lemon squeezed, herbs. Fifteen minutes.
3. In a parcel: a large sheet of baking paper, a few vegetables cut very thin in the middle, zucchini, carrot, leek, tomato, the fish on top, a slice of lemon, a drizzle of oil, salt, pepper.
4. Close it by folding the edges over several times, like a turnover, so the steam stays inside. Put it on a baking sheet.
5. Fifteen to twenty minutes at 200 °C. The parcel puffs up. Open it at the table, watching out for the steam.

📏 The landmarks

• A 150 g portion, cod, salmon, pollock, hake: fifteen minutes at 200 °C, eighteen to twenty in a parcel.
• Thin fillets, whiting, sole, plaice: ten minutes, twelve in a parcel.
• A whole 400 g fish, sea bream, sea bass, trout: twenty to twenty-five minutes.
• Frozen without thawing: count half as long again, twenty-two to twenty-five minutes for a portion.

⏱️ How long it takes

Five minutes of preparation and fifteen in the oven without you, and the parcel serves as the plate.

🩹 If it goes wrong

It is dry: overcooked. A drizzle of olive oil and lemon rescues it, or flaked into rice. It is still translucent in the centre: three more minutes, parcel closed again. The vegetables in the parcel are raw: cut too thick, next time in thin slices, or pre-cooked for two minutes.

🍽️ Make it tonight

Oven-baked breaded fish fillets, in twenty minutes. Or the cod parcel, which you prepare in the morning and leave in the fridge until evening.

🥘 The linked base recipe: Cod parcel with vegetables (serves 4)

• 4 cod portions, 150 g each
• 1 zucchini
• 2 carrots
• 1 lemon
• 4 tablespoons olive oil
• 4 sprigs of thyme or dill
• Salt, pepper