Salmon in Beurre Blanc

It's a long time since I last posted on here and it's about time I caught up!  I always cook something special for Mother's day and today is no exception, so it's Suzanne's favourite dish, Salmon in beurre blanc.  It's *very* naughty and uses a whole lot of butter, but what the heck, it's only once a year :).  I served it with wilted cavolo nero and roasted potatoes (I would prefer crushed new potatoes and a little olive oil and black pepper but Suzanne prefer roasties and it's mothers day...)

I get fed up with going into restaurants (and indeed seeing TV chef programmes) who say they are making beurre blanc and then proceed to add cream to the sauce.  NO, that is NOT beurre blanc but beurre nantais.  The original recipe uses only butter to make the sauce but Larousse says you *CAN* add a *small* amount of double cream to stabilise the sauce, but it's not hard to stop it separating anyway and I suspect chefs only add cream if the sauce is made well in advance and kept warm.  Do everyone a favour and add the butter at the last minute, the sauce is way better this way.

So, in our opinion beurre blanc is much better without cream as it retains a little of the sharpness that goes exceptionally well with salmon or sea bass.  Here's my recipe which is a little different to the classic so judge for yourselves.

Ingredients

1 salmon fillet or bass fillet per person
Olive oil for frying the salmon
2 large shallots, chopped finely
150ml white wine vinegar
300ml white wine, ideally muscadet
500ml fish stock
Black pepper
250g unsalted butter kept cold in the fridge
Salt and pepper to taste

Method

Put the shallots, vinegar, wine, stock and pepper into a pan and reduce by two thirds.  You can do this in advance and leave it until you need to add the butter.  Just before you cook the fish put the reduction back on the heat and keep it warm until you need to make the sauce.

Heat a small amount of olive oil in a pan, season the fish and add it skin side down in the pan.  Fry on a medium heat until the skin is lovely and crispy.  Turn the fish over and turn the heat right down or off depending on the thickness of the fillet.  If it's a thin fillet you can cover the fish and turn the heat off as the cooking will continue with the residual heat from the pan, if it's thicker you may need to cook for two minutes of so more.  The aim with the salmon is to cook it until it's still slightly darker in the centre, that way it keeps the fish really moist and retains the flavour, overcook it and the fish becomes dry.  Once it's cooked, take it off the heat, cover the pan and leave it to settle while you finish the sauce

To finish the sauce, cut the cold butter into small cubes and add it to the reduction.  Now stir it continuously keeping the heat as low as possible so that the butter melts and emulsifies without separating.  When the butter has melted completely, give it a quick whisk to make the sauce light and airy, season to taste with salt and pepper and it's ready to serve.  At this point you can add some herbs if you wish, chives or dill work really well with salmon, but it's optional and I usually don't bother.