First of all, here’s a picture of my two fish. This summer they started to grow gills, but now that the weather has turned cold, they seem to be back to normal.

I love to eat fish, but I really am not so hot at cooking it. I can do shrimp, clams and salmon, but beyond that I get a little lost and usually turn the cooking duties over to my husband, who is braver than I. Last weekend, the husband came home with this beautiful fish called an Orato here, but I have no idea what it is in English (please help me out if anyone out there has any ideas). Even he was stumped by what to do with the pretty fish, so we turned to the Encyclopedia of Italian Cooking and found a super simple recipe for cooking the fish in parchment paper. It was simple and delicious and I think that you could play with this recipe a lot.

Here’s all you need to do. If your using a whole fish, insert lemon slices and tomato slice and what ever herbs you prefer, we used parsley, into the inside of the fish. My husband added some chopped olives to this and it was good. On top of the fish, layer the same ingredients and add a dash of olive oil, salt and pepper. Wrap the fish up in parchment paper, similar to a present, and cook at 350 for about 50 minutes.

This recipe can be adapted for fillets of fish as well. Put lemon slices and tomatoes on top of the fillet. Salt, pepper and oil and wrap fillets in parchment. You only need to cook for about 10 minutes if your doing fillets.

Bon Apetito!