It is quite probable that this statement is confusing: ‘Fruit and vegetable paper’. However, linguistic license allows us to use it with some freedom, and not as a purely literal proposal.
The confusion refers to the fact that we think we can use paper to cook products. A great cooking technique from France: the papillote (from papillon or butterfly, by the way), basically consists of wrapping food in flame retardant paper or wattle (as in years gone by) or aluminum, and cooking it in the oven at a medium temperature.
Here we refer to something quite different. In some cases simulating the true skin, for example of a fish, with a few thin sheets that resemble paper, or, in another case, creating a visual illusion like festive confetti. But in both cases, the paper is actually made from fruits or vegetables.
A few years ago at the restaurant, we began to prepare a type of pimiento skin for some fish we serve as an appetizer.
At first this idea arose because we wanted to serve portions or strips of marinated ‘erla’. But they lacked the skin that fish have and that we sometimes love to eat. We decided to make a really pretty, shiny red skin, like that of many rich fish, which, of course, would be succulent and with a flavour to accompany the fish.
We decided to make it like a new skin, with thin red slices of piquillo peppers. Really, there is no secret to this. It is very simple. I think it is one of those achievable preparations that can be made with ease in any home. We work with professional machines, but it can be done with the usual things in a normal kitchen.
First a few quality piquillos are chosen and crushed with a little salt and sugar to obtain a smooth, thin cream. This cream is spread between two sheets of baking paper and crushed until quite thin and then left to dry at 60°C. (We do this in a machine that we have for this purpose, but at home it can be dried in the oven.) Finally, we cut it to the size of the portions of fish.
Beauty and flavour. We work a lot with this theme of sheets and it allows us to play about, contributing to the surprise factor, always providing a lot of fun and breaking our predictable routine.