Salmon two ways, fruit, and sancerre rose

I was lucky enough to come by a reasonably priced salmon filet (full side), wild-caught, frozen on the boat at the grocery recently. This cut nicely into four pieces, and could've been five or even six. Bright red, beautiful piece of fish, not at all "fishy" smelling. So far, so good. I figured two days in row, we'd have salmon for dinner. But I didn't want the two days to seem like the "same boring thing"

Given that fruit is in season now here in Michigan, I decided to try doing fruit sauces with the salmon, and at that, two rather different ones. For Monday night, I made up a blueberry salsa the night before. It was a mix of whole blueberries, honey, half a jalapeno pepper, some shallot, finely diced, and lime juice. The mix blended nicely overnight, and made for a slightly sweet, blueberry driven sauce, with acidic notes from the lime and just a bit of heat from the pepper. It made for a great main course, and was a subtle accompaniment that highlighted the freshness and flavor of the salmon.

For the 2nd night, I figured the salmon might have lost a bit of its freshness, so I decided to go with slightly bolder Asian flavors. So, I did a teriyaki style light glaze for the filets. And, to top them, I made a stove-top Asian white peach sauce. This combined a banana pepper (hot), some shallot again, 4 white peaches, some maple syrup, ginger, and some Chinese rice wine. I cooked it down to a thick, pectin-driven syrup, almost preserves like. I got a big surprise--the banana pepper was far hotter than I'd thought it'd be. The peaches were well complemented by the ginger and rice wine, and the maple worked well with teriyaki. But overall, the sauce was rather too big and powerful for the delicate salmon.

We also had a very enjoyable wine with the salmon. It was a 2008 Reverdy Les Villots Sancerre Rose. This Loire wine was made from pinot noir grapes--so, it has much of that beautiful fruit--red cherries and strawberries. There also is good acidity, a bit of lemon-citrus in it, and deep minerality from the soils of the region. The 08 was very nice--but I'd argue no better than the 07 of this wine. That is in contrast with many of the other Sancerre wines, particularly whites, which tend to be more beautiful in the 08 than 07 vintages. Still, this is a very nice wine, even if it's price tag near $25 is on the high end for a rose. It paired well with the salmon, and was nice with the blueberry sauce, where the citrus and berry notes in the salsa and wine complemented one another. It was less successful with the hot peach sauce, where a sweeter wine would've been better at taming the sauce. But it remained a nice wine the 2nd night.

Steak with blueberry gastrique

Dinner tonight involved rather inexpensive T-bone steaks from Busch's. Being as they were not top quality, I figured they could use some help. And, it's blueberry season here in Michigan. So... in spite of my wife's apprehension at the combination of blueberries and beef, I took the risk. And it turned out very well. I started by chopping up half a large shallot, sweating it in butter. In went a cup of blueberries. So far, traditional. Then, the "surprise"--throw in some maple syrup instead of sugar for the sweetness. I've never seen these together, but stood to reason they should go well together. And they do, it turns out. Added some port and red wine vinegar to the mix, and cooked it down. Yum! And, it turned out to pair well with a remarkably inexpensive merlot, the 2006 from Dona Sol. I normally American wines under $4, such as this one. So, I was surprised to find it drinkable, even pleasant. Now, complex and age-worthy it is not. but as a simple wine to pair with a lower quality steak with a fruit sauce, yes. It wasn't over-oaked, it had recognizeable fruit, and all in all, was a real surprise.