Recipes / Fish
Old Cape fish parcels with butter, onion and mace
Fish fillets wrapped in foil with butter, onion, parsley, mace and a spoon of tomato sauce, steamed on the coals the way a Cape cook baked them in 1891.
- Prep
- 20 min
- On the fire
- 15 min
- Serves
- 4
- Done at
- 145°F (63°C)
Ingredients
Method
Cooking on gas?
- Preheat with the burners on high and the lid closed for 10 minutes, then turn them down to medium so the lid thermometer settles at 175 to 200°C (350 to 400°F). Brush the grates clean and oil them.
- Close the lid between turns. It cooks a little faster than an open braai, so start checking about 5 minutes early.
- Keep one burner off or on low as a cooler zone. If fat flares up, move the food there. Never use water on a gas grill flare-up.
- For a smoky taste, put a handful of wood chips in a smoker box, or a foil parcel pierced with a few holes, over a lit burner while the grill preheats.
- Tear off 4 sheets of heavy-duty foil about 40 cm (16 inches) long. Rub the middle of each sheet with a little of the butter.
- Pat the fish dry. Mix the flour, salt and pepper and dust it lightly over both sides of each fillet.
- Lay a fillet on each sheet. Scatter over the onion, parsley and mace, and dot with the rest of the butter.
- Spoon 1 tablespoon of tomato sauce and 1 tablespoon of water over each fillet.
- Bring the long sides of the foil together over the fish and fold them down twice, then fold in the ends. Leave a little air space above the fish so it steams.
- Put the parcels on the grid over medium coals and cook for 12 to 15 minutes without turning. Thin fillets need about 10 minutes.
- Lift one parcel off, open it carefully away from your face and check the fish. Close it again and give it 2 to 3 minutes more if needed.
- Serve the fish in its foil with the buttery juices spooned over and lemon on the side.
Done when: the flesh is white all the way through and flakes easily with a fork, and a thermometer in the thickest part reads 63°C (145°F).
Tips
- Wrap each parcel in a second sheet of foil if your coals are hot. The juices stay in and the bottom does not scorch.
- Hake is soft and cooks fast. Firmer fish such as kob or yellowtail can take a few more minutes.
- The 1891 recipe stewed the fish in a tin pan in the oven or a baking-pot on the fire. You can do the same in a flat potjie over low coals for 20 minutes.
Hildagonda Duckitt grew up on a farm near Darling on the Cape West Coast and collected the recipes of her family and neighbours. Her “old Dutch recipe” for fish called for mackerel, silver-fish or young kabeljou, cooked in a pan with butter, onion, parsley, mace and a little tomato sauce. A foil parcel on the coals does the same job at a braai. Read cooking in foil on the braai for more on heat and timing.
Source
Adapted from Hilda's "Where is it?" of Recipes by Hildagonda J. Duckitt (1891), public domain.