Filo-wrapped Snapper with Fennel and Ricotta

It’s Royal Foodie Joust time again at the LOQ’s forum! I have had a lot of fun last time with my first tribute of the flattened spicy chicken, and Peter G at Souvlaki for the Soul won the title with his gorgeous Halvas. As the winner of last month’s challenge, the ingredients that Peter has put down on the table for this month challenge is: Fennel, Parsley, and Dairy (any kind).

It’s good to have a winner who is from the same country, as I can see Peter has picked the ingredients that are in season, and one of them is fennel. I picked up 2 massive fennels from the local Harris Farm Market at only $1.49/kg, really can’t complain.

Fennel, a strange looking thing, dare I say I’ve never cooked a fennel before. It is not a chinese vegetable of sorts, so my culinary experience with a fennel is very limited. I was really struggling with the ingredients this time round, and I did a fair amount of research on internet. Most of the fennel recipes I found led me to a fish dish, the aniseed taste of the fennel seems to go well with fish. Hence, fish that is…

I wanted to get a nice piece of fish fillet with skin on, so I can grilled the skin until crispy and served on a plate of fennel salad. However, most of the fillets at the fish shop already been de-skinned and so I had to change my plan and went for a filo-wrapped dish instead.  I am glad that I chose this method actually even though there was a lot more work and effort but totally worth it.

I’ve decided to use ricotta inside the wrap as the dairy ingredient from the challenge. The ricotta is a great for baking, its subtle taste compliments the fennel and fish so well. The ricotta doesn’t melt as much as I would like it to, next time I would definitely give other type of cheese a try.

Ingredients (serves 3)

1. 3 snapper fillets, washed and dry
3. 2 carrots, peeled, thinly sliced
4. 1 handful parsley, finely chopped
5. 350g ricotta cheese
6. 1 packet of filo pastry (12 sheets to make 3 parcels)
7. 1 tsp turmeric powder
8. 50g butter, softened

Method

1. Preheat oven to 180°c.
2. Sauteed fennel and carrot in a frying pan with a drizzle of olive oil.
3. Add turmeric powder, keep stirring until fennel and carrot soften. Set aside, and let it cool down.
4. Pan seared the fish fillet with some butter. Set aside, let it cool down.
5. Lay down 2 sheets of filo pastry, brush bit of butter in centre. Then lay down another 2 sheets at right angles to make a cross.
6. Put the fish in the centre, top with few spoonful of fennel and carrot mix.
7. Use fingers and break some ricotta into lumps and spread on top of the fish.
8. sprinkle some parsley on top.
9. brush the top and bottom edges of filo with more butter, fold inwards and seal the fish.
10. repeat no 9, with the left and right edges of the filo pastry and wrap the fish entirely.
11. Brush the filo parcel with more butter and lay it on a baking tray.
12. Put in the oven, and cook it for 20 min or until the pastry is golden brown.

Tagged as: carrot, fennel, filo, fish, pastry, ricotta, royal foodie joust, snapper, turmeric, wrap