Preparation:
Dust 2 6 oz fillets of salmon with flour. Shake off excess flour. In a sauté pan, heat clarified butter. Add fillets, and brown on one side; turn. Add garlic, shallots, red peppers and chopped cilantro and mushrooms. With fillets still in pan, deglaze with dry sherry. Add fish stock. Reduce over high heat for 2 to 3 minutes. Add cream. Reduce until sauce thickens. Remove salmon to heated serving plate. To the sauce still in the pan, add 2 to 3 Tablespoons Madeira. Cook only a minute more, long enough to evaporate the alcohol. Lace salmon with sauce, garnish with a dollop of creme fraiche and a sprig of cilantro.
***NOTES: When I made this dish, I didn't have fresh chanterelles, so I used a couple of dried Shitake mushrooms which I soaked in hot water for about 10 minutes before I rinsed and sliced them. I also didn't use any cilantro because my husband hates it. I would have loved it myself!
The most important note to this recipe is NOT to overcook the salmon. I cooked it until brown on the bottom, flipped it, proceeded with the recipe, but removed the salmon right after deglazing the pan in order to prevent the salmon from over an over-dry quality that is most unpleasant and a tremendous waste of a good piece of fish.
I used only the tail fillets for this dish, eliminating the "bone" problem. I also had no idea exactly what a Christy red pepper was, so I used some really lovely roasted red pepper. T
he fish stock I made with the head, bones and tail of the fish and added some celery, onion and peppercorns and bay leaf to the fish stock, cooking it only 20 minutes to prevent bitterness of the stock. I also strained the stock through cheesecloth to eliminate the gray cloudy pieces |
