Savoy cabbage and snapper parcels with braised butter beans

By: Zita Steyn
From: Good Better Green
Serves: 4

This is a lovely dish for when you are having friends round. Prep all your ingredients, then cook the veggies and fish at the same time. Choose small, but thick, pieces of fish (fleshy bourgeois red snapper and monkfish work well) and adjust the spiciness of your bean braise to suit your taste. Remember to remove 5–8 of the largest outer leaves of the cabbage before shredding, as you will need these to make your parcels.

Ingredients

Quantity	Ingredient

For the braised beans

Quantity	Ingredient
2 tablespoons	olive oil, plus extra to serve
1	medium onion, diced
pinch	sea salt
1/2	celeriac, peeled and diced
4	plum or regular tomatoes, blanched and skinned, quartered, deseeded and diced
pinch	dried chilli flakes, to taste
1/2	savoy cabbage, finely shredded, reserving outer leaves for the parcels
275g	cooked butter beans, cooked butter beans
60g	samphire, woody stalks removed
2 tablespoons	finely chopped parsley

For the fish

Quantity	Ingredient
5-8	large savoy cabbage leaves, thick core removed and top part of leaf left intact
4	thick pieces of bourgeois snapper, pin-boned
4 thick slices	butter
8 slices	lemon
500ml	dry white wine
	sea salt
	freshly ground black pepper

Method

Heat the olive oil for the braised beans in a medium saucepan and sweat the onion with the salt over a medium heat until soft and translucent. Add the celeriac, tomatoes, chilli flakes and a few tablespoons of the bean cooking liquid (or water), and braise, covered, for 10–15 minutes until the celeriac is tender.
Add the shredded cabbage and another tablespoon or two of the bean cooking liquid (or water) and cook for a few minutes until the cabbage is tender. Add the butter beans and samphire and cook for a further 1–2 minutes. Stir in the parsley, set aside and keep warm.
Bring a large pan of salted water to the boil and blanch the large cabbage leaves for a minute or so until tender. Refresh in iced water or under cold running water, then pat dry.
Take the largest cabbage leaf and overlap the two halves to close the gap where the stalk would have been. Place a piece of fish, skin side down, on the leaf, season generously with salt and pepper, put a slice of butter on top, then 2 lemon slices next to each other, and wrap it up like a parcel, using toothpicks or kitchen string to secure the leaf. Repeat with the remaining cabbage leaves and fish ingredients, using 2 overlapping smaller leaves if one is not big enough to wrap the fish.
Place the parcels in a saucepan that fits them snugly in a single layer. Pour in the wine, which should almost cover the parcels, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer for 10–15 minutes, or until the fish flakes easily when separated with a fork. You may want to turn the parcels over halfway to ensure both sides are evenly cooked.
To serve, divide the bean mixture between four pasta bowls, drizzle with olive oil, remove the toothpicks from the fish parcels and place them on top. Alternatively, unwrap the fish and shred the cabbage leaf wrappers finely, then mix this into the beans before serving.