#67 - Salmon with Red Wine-Balsamic Sauce

This hundred recipe challenge is all about cooking new things, and since we didn't cook too much fish before, that was one of our major focuses this year. Here's another:

Salmon with Red Wine-Balsamic Sauce

From Food & Wine This is actually a pretty straight-forward recipe. You make a sauce with red wine and balsamic vinegar, you cook your salmon, and you put it together. So, naturally, you're going to need salmon, red wine, and balsamic. And then you also need some olive oil, butter, cream, and a few other things. We didn't take too many pictures with this recipe, but you'll get the idea. You start out by chopping some shallots, and sauteing that in the olive oil. Then you add some other ingredients along with the red wine and the balsamic and you reduce it down to a thick sauce. You add some cream and salt and pepper, and then once that's all done, you cook the fish, and serve. For being very simple, this dish came out very elegant. You have feel like you're on a cooking competition show when you get to say that you made a balsamic reduction. And it comes out being a tasty way to get your salmon. If you want a different way to have a tasty fish dinner, try this one.

Ingredients

• 1 Tbs olive oil
• 1/2 small shallot, minced
• 1/2 thyme sprig
• 1/4 tsp black pepper
• 1 cup dry red wine
• 1/8 cup balsamic vinegar
• 1 Tbs heavy cream
• 2 Tbs cold unsalted butter, cut into tablespoons
• Salt
• Black pepper
• 2 6-oz skinless salmon fillets

Preparation

1. In a medium saucepan, heat 1/2 Tbs of the olive oil over medium heat.
2. Add the shallot and cook until softened, about 4 minutes.
3. Add the thyme sprig, black pepper, red wine, and balsamic vinegar and boil over high heat until reduced to 1 Tbs, about 12 minutes.
4. Remove the pan from the heat and whisk in the cream and then the butter, one Tbs at a time.
5. Season the sauce with salt and pepper.
6. Strain into a bowl and keep warm.
7. In a large nonstick skillet, heat the remaining 1/2 Tbs of olive oil over medium heat until shimmering.
8. Season salmon fillets with salt and pepper and add them to the skillet, skinned side up.
9. Cook until browned, about 4 minutes.
10. Turn the salmon and cook until the fish is just opaque throughout, about 3 minutes longer.
11. Transfer fish to plates, spoon the sauce over the salmon, and garnish with ground black pepper.
12. Serve immediately.