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.

Salmon and Rose

I am a fan of good fish, but finding it here in Michigan is not so easy. Busch's, our local grocery chain, usually has salmon and other fish, but alot of it is "fresh," meaning it is, in fact, often rather fishy and stinky by the time we get to enjoy it. So, paradoxically, the best fish is often that which has been vacuum-packed and flash frozen right on the fishing boat. Such was what we found this week--it was a side of wild-caught Pacific salmon--with beautiful color, still frozen and vac-packed. I broke it dow to four filet portions, and cooked up two, simply seasoned with salt and pepper. With some orzo and on a bed of sauteed spinach, and a squeeze of lemon juice, it was quite tasty. No fishy flavors, good classic oily salmon taste. Yum!

Best of all, though, we paired it with a Sancerre Rose wine. Now, a lot of people think of white zinfandel when they think of pink wines. Well, what a disservice to the beautiful old world roses! This, made from pinot noir, is a mix of strawberry, cherry fruit, with some floral notes, with a stark minerality and strong acid notes. It is an amazingly complex, fully dry, tasty wine. In no way is it the sickly sweet, nasty white zin we think of. So, don't fear the pink!