Chicken in Parchment Paper

I attended a cooking class at Palate Sensations in Singapore and this dish of "Oven baked snapper in 'catoccio' with onions, tomatoes and potatoes" was part of the menu. Simply put, it is fish cooked in parchment paper. Since fresh fish is not readily available during the monsoon season in India (plus, I have no freaking idea how to buy fish or identify the different types of fish yet), I decided to try cooking chicken breasts in this manner. 

Serves: 1
Cooking time: 20 minutes

ingredients
1 chicken breast fillet, about 150-200g
1/2 small red capsicum, sliced
1/2 yellow red capsicum, sliced
2 small portobello mushrooms, sliced
Olive oil
1 tsp of crushed garlic
1 tsp of fresh thyme leaves
Salt and pepper
Dash of white wine or chinese cooking wine (hua diao jiu)

method
Preheat oven to 180 degrees for 10-15 mins.

Make some deep gashes in the chicken meat with a small kitchen knife. In a mixing bowl, coat the chicken generously with olive oil, crushed garlic, thyme, salt and freshly ground black pepper and let it sit for at least 15 minutes.

In the center of a large piece of parchment paper, lay the mushrooms in one layer (roughly over the surface area of one fillet), followed by the capsicum slices. Season with some salt and pepper. Finally, put the fillet on top of the vegetables and splash wine over the meat. 

This is the fun part - wrap your chicken into a parcel! Any way is fine, so long as the package is sealed and you leave some room for expansion. 

Pop the parcel into the oven and let it cook for 15-20 minutes. Remove the parcel from the oven when the time is up and let it rest for at least 5 minutes before you open up the parcel for serving.  

tip 
As it is very easy to overcook chicken breast, a good alternative would be to use chicken drumsticks instead.