January 27, 2015 New Recipe Roulade Salmon filets with cranberry sauce plus steamed sugar snap peas and Potatoes au Gratin

January 27, 2015 New Recipe Roulade Salmon fillets with cranberry sauce plus steamed sugar snap peas and Potatoes au Gratin

I went to Sprouts Farm Market today and bought two ½ lb. fillets of fresh Atlantic raised salmon ($5.99/lb.).

Suzette arrived home hungry around 6:00 and suggested that we roll and skewer the salmon filets and sauté them in the manner described in a Wine Country Cookbook recipe, we cooked once.  She looked at the recipe and we discussed whether to follow that recipe or create our own dish and decided to roll and skewer the salmon fillets, but rather than using the tomatoes to simply steam sugar snap peas that needed to be eaten and heat up the delicious potatoes au gratin from last night’s meal.

One benefit of rolling and skewering the salmon filet in my opinion is that by wrapping the thin end around the thick end of the filet allows the whole file to cook more evenly than simply laying the filet on the skillet, which tends to overcook the thin portion and under cook the thick portion of the filet.

As it turned out the thin portion was wonderfully crisp on the outside and tender on the inside but the larger portion in the center was under cooked, so we had to microwave the fillets for a minute to cook the inside to our liking.

While Suzette was sautéing the filet roulades in hot peanut oil, I got a flash of inspiration for making a sauce.  I knew that Suzette liked cranberry sauce with her salmon, so I made a  

New Recipe

Simple cranberry sauce:

I put ½ cup of Black Smuggler 2013 Rattle Snake Red (or any slightly sweet wine) into a small skillet with

1 heaping Tbsp. of Raspberry preserves (or any type of fruit jelly)

¼ cup of dehydrated cranberries and a

Dash of Italian red Vermouth (or any medium herby red vermouth.  I think Vya with its strong herb flavors would overpower the sauce) to balance the sweetness of the red wine and raspberry preserves and to add some herb flavor to the sauce.

The sauce ingredients

I stirred this mixture for about ten minutes; during which time the preserves went into solution, the cranberries softened as they gathered up some of the liquid of the sauce and then the whole sauce reduced to a thickened liquid.

Suzette and I liked the cranberry sauce with the salmon.

The dinner before being sauced

Then we had another surprise.  I chilled a bottle of Santiago Station Winery’s Devil’s Back Sauvignon Blanc from Valle Central, Chile that I found stacked by the checkout counter at Total Wine for $3.99 (sort of like the old TV Guides and candies at supermarkets).  When we drank it with the sautéed salmon it was delicious, full bodied, fruity and floral; everything you would want except refined elegance.  Its full bodied flavor was perfect with the salmon and it was not too sweet.  I recommend this bottle.  The only problem is that it is capped with a screw top without a plastic gasket, so it will oxidize if left to sit with the original screw top on it for as little time as overnight after opening.  For $3.99 per bottle, any excess can be properly stoppered, used for cooking, or simply drunk in an evening, without regrets.  It is definitely my new first choice for Sauvignon Blanc for less than $5.00 for a bottle.  I liked it almost as much as the more refined Mantua from New Zealand at $7.99 at Costco.  Thank goodness there are finally decently priced Sauvignon Blanc wines coming into this market.  

Devil's Back 

Also, it is wonderful to have a creative thought and quickly execute it as I did tonight in making the cranberry sauce.  It is also important to have a full larder with the ingredients to make sauces. 

Recently I was told that balsamic and brown sugar is a good sauce base, but I have not tried it yet, perhaps because I like the flavor of wine in my sauces and I have yet to try making a sauce with both wine and balsamic vinegar.  This is probably due to my mother’s influence.  She started one of the first modern cooking schools in Texas in the 60’s because she wanted to introduce the use of wine in cooking and fine dining into the strongly Baptist influenced population of Fort Worth, Texas, that considered drinking alcohol a sin.  Mother used to explain that using wine in sauces was not a sin because the alcohol cooks off while heating the sauce, which may or may not be entirely true.    

Also, I am reading Monet’s Table, which mentioned that it was a pity that Claude Monet did not journal more of his meals.  I hope one says that of me some day or even too many recipes.

After dinner we ate bowls of vanilla ice cream with fresh blueberries.  I added the last of the currant sauce to my bowl and a dash of Grand Marnier. Voila.

Bon Appétit