Ingredients
- 1 tablespoon unsalted butter
- 4 cups Brut Champagne
- 1/4 cup shallots
- 6 sprigs fresh dill
- 2 tablespoons minced fresh dill
- 3 tablespoons salt
- 1 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 4 (6-ounce) salmon fillets, skin removed.
- Champagne Vanilla Sauce, recipe follows
- Champagne-Vanilla Sauce.
- 1/2 cup chopped shallots
- 1 cup Champagne
- 1 vanilla bean, halved lengthwise
- 1 1/2 cups heavy cream
- 4 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
- 1/2 teaspoon salt
- 1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
- 1 teaspoon Champagne vinegar
Preparation
Step 1
Grease a 2-quart straight-sided sauté pan with the butter. Add the Champagne, shallots, sprigs, chopped dill, and salt and pepper and bring to a boil. Reduce the heat to medium low. Gently simmer for 5 minutes.
Add the fish to the pan and spoon the poaching liquid over them. Cook uncovered until salmon is firm and cooked through, about 10 minutes. (If the poaching liquid does not cover the fish, spoon the liquid over the fillets as they cook.)
Remove the fillets from the pan and blot excess liquid with a paper towel. Serve with the
Champagne Vanilla Sauce
In a saucepan, combine the shallots and Champagne. Scrape the vanilla seeds from the split pod into the pan and add the vanilla pod halves. Bring to a boil and cook until most of liquid evaporates, about 6 minutes.
Add the heavy cream, bring to a boil and simmer until cream thickens and coats the back of a spoon, and is reduced by nearly 50 percent in volume, about 3 minutes.
Whisk in the butter until smooth and strain the sauce through a fine mesh strainer, pre on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible. Season, to taste, with salt, pepper, vinegar and serve immediately over fish or shellfish.