February 6, 2012 Dinner – Poached Salmon with a Scallop and Spinach Cream Sauce on Baked Delicata Squash

February 6, 2012 Dinner – Poached Salmon with a Scallop and Spinach Cream Sauce on Baked Delicata Squash

In the Morning Suzette and I discussed dinner and we both thought fish sounded good.  I mentioned that we had some frozen salmon in the fridge that we could poach.  I went to Costco for my favorite lunch on the run, a Polish Dog and pick up asparagus, La Brea whole grain bread and 1.5/lb. of scallops.  When I came home I took a salmon filet out of the freezer.

I rode bike from 4:30 p.m. until 5:20 p.m.  When I returned home I went to the garden and picked thyme and after a shower I plucked about 1 Tbs. of thyme and chopped about two Tbs. of garlic scapes from the fridge in the garage and about 3 Tbs. of white onion.

When Suzette came home she poached the salmon in white wine (a PPI Spanish Montanana Viura in this case), water and butter and the herb and onion mixture (about 1 cup).  As the salmon was poaching we heated the PPI Baked Delicata Squash stuffed with onion and brown sugar in the microwave.

I chopped four of the scallops into 1/3 inch cubes and bagged the remaining ten scallops in three bags for future meals and Suzette then threw the chopped scallops into the poaching liquid.  After a few minutes Suzette removed the Salmon from the poaching medium and kept it warm in the oven and made a roux for the béchamel sauce with 1 1/2 Tbs. of flour and 1 ½ Tbs. of butter in a separate sauce pan.  After cooking the roux for about 2 minutes we started adding poaching liquid to make a cream sauce and when the roux was creamy enough to pour, poured the thick cream sauce back into the large, covered pot and stirred it to thin the sauce into a light creamy consistency by adding a bit more white wine.  Then we added two handfuls of spinach to the pot and covered and heated it to blanch the spinach. 

Suzette then took two large soup bowls and placed one piece of warmed PPI squash in each bowl and topped the squash with one-half of the poached salmon filet and then one-half of the spinach, cream sauce.  The meal took about 45 minutes to make and we were seated at the table by 7:20 p.m. in time to see Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert’s shows

We drank a ¾ full bottle of Chateau Bonnet 2006 rosè wine made with 50% Merlot and 50% Sauvignon Blanc that had little flavor or character but did have a slightly nutty cranberry toothiness and red wine bite bought at Quarter’s close out bin for $4.00 that went well with the salmon.

I love a cream sauce made with fish stock.  It is among my favorite sauces and very easy to make, as you can see.  S you can see I also like to add shellfish to my cream sauces to give it a richer flavor.  We could have added shrimp, but chose not to because the scallops were fresh and we did not want to interfere with their richer flavor.  

The sweet, nutty squash stuffed with pecans, brown sugar and onions combined with the flaky salmon and the creamy scallop/spinach sauce to make an exquisite dish.    

We finished off the bottle of Chateau Bonnet with a few chocolate chip raisin oatmeal cookies I had made last night, as we watched the Antiques Road Show.

Bon Appètit