nutrition and health

Cartoccio - Baked in foil: Advantages and Tips

What is the cooking in foil?

The " al cartoccio " is a cooking technique that involves wrapping the food in a sheet of paper for food use, after possibly seasoning it with spices, fats and various flavors.

The cartoccio can be subjected to any heat source, which greatly complicates the description of this cooking technique.

In general, the cartoccio uses two modes of thermal transfer, called conduction and convection, while the specific means of propagation are air, water and steam.

This technique can be applied in oven cooking (which is certainly the most suitable tool), grilled or even grilled or in a pan (NOT non-stick).

How does it work?

The operation of cooking in foil can be summarized as follows:

  1. Heat transfer from the source to the conduction medium: from the electric resistances or from the flame of the oven to the air contained inside it or to the lava stone of the gas grill; or from the flame of the stove to the solid of the plate or pan. Alternatively, radiation can occur directly from the embers.
  2. Transfer of heat from the conduction medium to the foil (aluminum foil or food paper wrapping the food).
  3. Heat transfer from the foil (secondary conduction medium) to the food.
  4. Cooking food for:
    1. Heat conduction from aluminum foil to food (solid and liquid parts).
    2. Conduction of heat from food liquids (water and fats), and from the steam released accordingly, to solid parts.

Note : certain foods can also be closed in the foil and cooked directly on the dying embers of a charcoal or wood grill; obviously, these are small foods wrapped in aluminum, suitably greased with oil and turned very frequently on the sides of the casing.

Features

Benefits and defects of cooking in foil

Baking in foil is usually depicted as the ideal marriage between the full-bodied taste of baking, with various sauces and sauces, and the sobriety of steam in preserving the nutrients contained in the dishes to the maximum.

Note : today there are variants of traditional systems that exploit the same concept of cartoccio but that are subjected to a different primary conduction means, or water.

We are talking about vacuum cooking and vasocottura (even at low temperatures), two innovative and avant-garde methods that, in addition to providing all the advantages of baking in a foil pack, allow food to be preserved for a considerable period of time within the airtight container.

Baked in foil and fat

Baking in foil can also be done "naturally", that is without added seasonings, to make it friendly with low-calorie and low-fat diets (low in fat); above all meat and fish, in fact, once closed in the bag they remain in close contact with the fat and cellular juices that have escaped due to the heat, without dispersion of flavors.

Furthermore, the addition of other seasonings can be replaced - at least in part - with raw fat when cooked.

The choice of cartoccio

The wrapping, the so-called cartoccio, is generally made up of the common baking paper, metallic or vegetable (in tropical countries the leaves of some plants are used), or from foil paper, which guarantees a more hermetic closure and is fireproof.

The choice of the casing is a rather important element for the success of baking in foil; a certain porosity of the paper, together with the higher cooking temperatures, contributes to the homogeneous browning of the food, while softer dishes similar to the boiled meat emerge from a waterproof casing, such as tinfoil.

The creation of small holes in the outer casing promotes the escape of cooking fat and those released from the food, making the dish leaner, dry and less tasty.

Nutritional aspects

From a nutritional point of view, the one in foil is an excellent cooking technique, provided you use it adequately; it is in fact a generally low-calorie method, when compared to others such as frying or roasting. At the same time, it maintains and enhances the aromas of foods, which are particularly appealing even to the little ones. The vegetables cooked in foil, remaining in close contact with cellular juices, retain a fair amount of thermolabile vitamins, such as C, B1 and B2.

Note : in contact with particularly acid substances, the aluminum sheets may release some not really healthy metallic residues (see below).

Method

Practical rules of baking in foil

Baking in foil is ideal for foods that are not too bulky, reduced to slices or fillets (fish), while for larger foods, particularly generous cooking times are required.

As a general rule, for example, fish fillets cooked in foil require 3-4 minutes of cooking at 180-200 ° C for every centimeter of thickness; at least three times for whole fish, from which the same fillets could be obtained.

Note : for large fish, cooking in foil can be replaced by cooking in salt crust. This, which as an intermediate shell exploits a mineral barrier, can be practiced only in the oven and shows the same qualities and defects as baking in foil; the only penalty is the expansion of cooking times.

We now describe the method and the practical rules for obtaining a good baking in the oven .

  • Preheat the oven to 180-200 ° C or according to the temperature prescribed by the recipe.
  • Once prepared, the ingredients should be placed at the center of the envelope, which - as a general rule - must be three times wider and twice longer than the dish. If the weight of the food is high, it is advisable to place the sheet of paper directly on the baking tray to be baked, to avoid breaking the bag during the transfer.
  • Especially when other seasonings are added, it is necessary to slightly fold the edges of the casing, in order to collect the spilled oil without letting it go out; lift the two looser and more spacious edges making them fit together in the middle over the product, then begin to roll up or fold the edges together from the point of union, continuing to the two lateral ends which, for greater safety, will also fold back on themselves.

    If, on the other hand, no seasonings are added, hermetically seal the parcel by folding over the food the longer side of the casing, so as to perfectly match the two edges; at this point, roll them together starting from the joined end.

  • Check the closure of the sides of the foil well; if baking paper is used, the hermetic closure can be guaranteed by the glue effect of the brushed egg white on the edges of the baking paper.
  • Bake for the time prescribed in the recipe; alternatively, the cartoccio can be cooked on an already hot grill, using foil in a double layer as a wrapper to avoid burning it.

Aluminum

Does using foil for cartoccio hurt?

When it comes to baking, this is certainly the most frequent question: is aluminum foil bad for your health?

The answer is not simple, as many researches have denied the harmful effects of this metal on human health, even if, to tell the truth, they have taken into consideration the impact of the addition of additives and raw food contamination or during industrial handling of raw materials. The release of aluminum from the foil during cooking could be another matter entirely.

We know that food intake of aluminum should be limited to 1mg / kg of body weight per week; beyond this limit it is not excluded that it could create health problems. The average for the adult population is between 0.2-1.5mg / kg weekly; for younger subjects, the maximum limits varied between 0.7-2.3mg / kg per week.

It has been described as dangerous "to eat foods that contain sodium acid phosphate and aluminum, or live near the mining mines"; no mention is made with regard to cooking in foil, which could release aluminum ions due to the interaction between food acids and the metal of the casing.

When in doubt, the "rule of common sense" wins: it is advisable to use aluminum foil baking occasionally, perhaps alternating the metal casing with a food paper one, or turning this technique with similar methods such as: with salt, vasocottura and cooking in vacuum.

Recipes

Baked Fish - Amberjack Fillets with Cuttlefish and Shrimps

Alice, your Personal Cooker, explains on MypersonaltrainerTv how to make a delicious baked fish.

For you, he chose the amberjack fillets with cuttlefish and shrimp on a bed of tomatoes, capers and black olives.

Baked fish

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