Mediterranean fish parcels, light recipe

January diet? Not for me thanks, I’d rather have tasty light food that I can enjoy instead.

Don’t get me wrong I have dieted in the course of my lifetime but all of my diets have miserably failed. All the lost weight has always come back just as quickly as I lost it.

Most diets don’t work because we are all different, with different metabolisms and lifestyles. Also they are often too scrict and unnatural. If you are always thinking of dieting and you are watching every mouthful then something isn’t right with your diet.

Being obsessed by what you eat is never healthy, you simply need a balance. Instead it will be more useful to listen to your body and see which foods agree and work best for you.

During the last 10 years I have learned to change my lifestyle instead: I have reduced sugar to a minimum and I can often happily go days without it, I am having lots of yogurt instead of milk which has healthy bacteria for your gut (full fat of course, low fat foods just keep you permanently unsatisfied and wanting more than you actually need), I am sticking to a Mediterranean diet increasing my fish consumption, wholemeal foods and reducing red meat to no more than once a week whilst cutting down on fried and rich foods too.

Simple rules really and yes, when I am out or at least once a week I indulge and eat whatever I feel like because this can only do you good. If you are trying to loose weight than you will find that this won’t spoil your diet at all.

So let me give you this lovely light recipe. I had these fish parcels in Italy on new year’s eve and they are perfect as a light meal. I loved them so much that I decided to try them at home. The fish is wrapped in individual parchment paper and steamed. Cooking fish in this way allows the fish to cook in its own juices and to maintain its beautiful flavour.

A fab easy dish to prepare perfect for dinner parties too!

• Prep Time : 20 minutes
• Cook Time : 28 minutes

Ingredients

• white fish (like cod,haddock, sea bream or seabass) – 4 fillets
• parsley – small bunch
• cherry tomatoes – handful
• black olives – handful
• capers – 1 tbsp
• salt and pepper
• olive oil
• potatoes – 450 g – 2 cups

Instructions

Peel and slice the potatoes about 4 mm or 0.16 inch thick. Put them in a saucepan, cover them with cold salty water and bring to the boil. Cook for about 8 minutes then drain. The potatoes should be lightly soft.

Cut out some parchment paper into 4 rectangles measuring 30x 35 cm or 12 x 14 inch. Drizzle a little olive oil in the middle of each rectangle and lay a few potato slices and sprinkle some parsley on it.

Lay a fish fillet on the potatoes and season it with salt and pepper. Add some olives and cherry tomatoes sliced in half and a few capers. Drizzle with olive oil.

Twist the ends of the paper to seal the parcels and bake them in the oven at 200C or 400F for about 20 minutes. After this time open the parcels and check that both the fish and the potatoes are soft. Some fish fillets will cook quicker than others depending on thickness.

Serve warm with the fish still in the parchment paper.

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