Salmon, Spinach & Garbonzo Beans baked in foil

Flipping through a new magazine the other day, I found a whole article on "heart healthy" fish recipes baked in parchment paper.  While I know as a cook that I should have parchment paper around... I rarely do, so I made packets out of foil instead. The only drawback is that you can't really see what is happening in the there, but believe me, it IS cooking beautifully.

I made this for the family after a fun day out at the aquarium and bumming around Seattle, and we returned home ready for a nice dinner. It came together quickly, and everyone loved it, even the one that doesn't really like fish! It was especially good served on the thin spaghetti noodles, even though I admit, I only added those for the photo shoot... it soaked up all the yummy juices and held together the spinach, garbanzos and salmon into one lip smacking bite.  Hmmmm, I am definitely making this again soon since I almost always have these ingredients on hand. I used the Costco frozen fillets, but any salmon would work cut into individual portions. 

I'd like to link to the original Martha Stewart recipe online, but after searching extensively, it looks that it is not out there yet. In this day and age, how can that even be???   If you are interested in the original, it's from the March 2011 MS Living magazine, I did change a couple things but it's close.

Ingredients:
4 salmon fillets
1 bunch of fresh parsley, roughly chopped
1 Tbsp minced garlic
3-4 Tbsp Olive Oil
1 tsp salt
1-2 tsp red pepper flakes
4 BIG handfuls fresh baby spinach
1 15oz. garbonzo beans, drained
Ground pepper
Sea Salt
1 lemon

In a blender, or food processor, make a simple mixture of the parsley, garlic and olive oil.  I must admit I didn't even chop the parsley, just ripped into smaller pieces and zoomed it up with the garlic, salt and olive oil.  You do want this mixture to be highly seasoned because it is flavoring your salmon fillets so I wouldn't skimp too much on the salt in this step.

Cut four sheets of foil in roughly 11x17 sheets.  Make a crease down the center of each sheet so you can see exactly which side you need to stay on... that is, if you want some tidy packets when you are done. 

Each foil sheet should have the following:

•  a large handful of spinach
•  topped with about 1/4 of the can of garbanzos
•  top with a salmon fillet,
• spread with the parsley pesto
• Red pepper flakes (I added quite a few, and it was not too spicy!)
• and a big squeeze of lemon

Crimp the sides of the packet like this:

Bake at 400 degrees for about 10-15 minutes. 
I used two baking sheets, two packets per each pan to make sure they didn't leak all over my oven! My salmon fillets were pretty thick so I baked for 15 minutes.  I checked at 10 minutes, and carefully (it is HOT & steamy) opened one of the packets and noted that it needed a bit more time.  I just recrimped the foil and threw it back in for another 5 minutes.

It is a bit tricky to get all this out of the packet because it's hot, juicy and you're trying to keep the fish intact!  Ideally it would seem you'd want your salmon sitting on a bed of spinach & garbanzos, but that is easier said than done.  Here's what I did to get the presentation above, With a spatula, carefully lift out the fillet, then with a pot holder, dump the rest of the contents out onto the plate and the pasta (or rice!), you can arrange it afterwards. 

Side Dish Inspirations

Since this main dish already has the protein, greens and legumes, it could stand on it's own for dinner, but I loved having a starch with it too

• Thin spaghetti noodles
• Rice
• French bread

What else would this technique work on???

You could easily change the meat in this recipe, here's some ideas.

• Any fish would work with this, Tilapia or Halibut.
• Chicken breasts (pounded uniformly thin) would well with these flavors too, but would require a bit more cooking time.