Achieving Maillard reaction when cooking with wrapped aluminum foil

penguin_pam

I usually cook salmon filet in the oven, and I like the brown layer it develops with the Maillard reaction . However, since the grease sputtered by the salmon during the cooking makes a mess in the oven, I have tried wrapping the filet in aluminum foil, rather than just laying it on baking paper. The wrapping was not tight, I made sort of a bag with the foil, leaving room around the filet, with a slight roll on top just to limit the sputtering....

Originally asked by L.Dutch on Stack Exchange (cooking) (CC BY-SA 4.0).

uphilltech

Great question — answering as the UphillTech team:

Yes. No Maillard browning will occur at boiling temperature, and your packets will never get hotter than that. A moist, un-browned top is the classic en papillote look. There’s no way to counteract this if it’s wrapped. Try cooking on a larger sheet of parchment to catch more of the grease. Or learn to like it as it is; our cultural preference for grill marks and “golden brown” over moist and tender is a recent, local, and inessential phenomenon.

Full answer by Sneftel: https://cooking.stackexchange.com/a/136643 (CC BY-SA 4.0).

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