Fish in Foil

I really wish I had taken pictures of this last night when I cooked it up for dinner with friends, but I did not.  Oops!  Will have to update someday when I make it again.

I cook fish in foil because it is easy to do, hard to mess up, and conducive to grilling.  It's a bit wasteful, though, as the foil comes out so nasty that it is hard to clean it sufficiently for recycling.  Bummer.

Ingredients:

• Fish
• White wine
• Olive oil
• Lemon
• Ginger (fresh is better but dry works fine)
• Herbs (I used parsley, chives, and lemon verbena)
• Salt
• Pepper
• Heavy-duty aluminum foil

Method:

Heat your grill on medium or oven to 350F or so

Lay out a big piece of foil in a rimmed baking or roasting pan

Place your fish in, skin down (if applicable)

Pour some wine over it.  Pour some olive oil over it.  Zest your lemon over it.  Grate (fresh) or shake (powdered) your ginger over it.  Mince up your herbs and sprinkle them on top.  Salt and pepper it

Wrap it up in a nice, tight pouch.  Leave a little room for it to puff up

If you're grilling, transfer the foil pouch to the grill.  I used the high rack with the top closed of my gas grill for 20 minutes.  If you're baking, put it on a rimmed cookie sheet or a roasting pan and put it in the oven like that.  20-25 minutes should do it for the oven, too.

Remove from heat, but don't open that pouch for another 10 minutes or so.  When you open it up, give it the fork test and make sure it's cooked through.  It will be, but if it's not, wrap it back up and put it back on for more time.

Notes:

• Last night, I used skin-on wild salmon fillet that was pre-cut into dinner-sized portions, but any decently sturdy fish will do for this recipe.  It's not ideal for really thin, delicate fish like flounder, and I feel that even though it would work fine for something like bluefish, a really oily fish like that does better grilled with stronger stuff on it than poached in foil. Bluefish and swordfish can stand up to straight grilling anyway.  Use the foil for something that is more likely to fall apart.
• If your bag busts open, the oil and the alcohol are going to make for quite a lot of flame on your grill, but it will be short-lived.  A little leaking from the seams is fine, but try not to puncture the pouch.
• Again, freeze your stinky fish waste if you don't want to smell up your kitchen or attract all the neighborhood racoons to your garbage.  
• Cats love fish skin.  You can use this info to indulge your cats, or to guard your dinner, the choice is yours!