RFCJ RECIPE ARCHIVE
Posted by : Karen Selwyn Salmon with Sorrel Sauce - dairy
Claudia Roden jokes that salmon has replaced carp as "the" Jewish fish based on the number of catered weddings and Bar/Bat Mitzvahs which serve it. I have found another interesting connection between Jews and salmon. In JEWISH COOKERY: FROM BOSTON TO BAGHDAD, Malvina Liebman explains that Jewish fishermen were an integral part of the Alaskan fishing industry, arriving with the Russian fishing fleets in the 1830s. In 1870, two Jewish fishermen got a twenty-year contract with the United States government to fish for salmon in the waters surrounding the islands off the mainland of Alaska. Their salmon enterprise prospered and they created a steamship line between San Franciso and Alaska which became an important means of getting prospectors for gold to Alaska for the Yukon gold rush. I make the following salmon dish very rarely. Sorrel is really hard to find in the Washington DC area. (I used to be able to get sorrel at a market called the French Market, but they closed and I haven't gotten it in a long time.) If you can get some real sorrel, this recipe is a treat which takes the peasant soup schav uptown in the form of a great sauce for salmon. This sauce is extremely rich so this recipe is best served in small portions as a first course. For what it's worth, I don't think Manischevitz actually uses sorrel in their schav. My memory is that they use spinach and lemon juice to duplicate the sour taste of true sorrel. Karen Selwyn * * * * * * * Salmon with Sorrel Sauce 1 lb salmon filet (preferably even thickness) 3/4 cup dry white wine 1/3 cup fish stock 1/4 cup dry vermouth (See note) juice of 1/2 lemon 2 shallots, minced 1/4 cup heavy cream 2 ounces fresh sorrel, washed and shredded 2 tablespoons butter salt and freshly ground pepper to taste additional lemon juice to taste Prepare the salmon by grilling, broiling or baking. Allow the salmon to come to room temperature and cut the fish up into serving portions. Combine wine, fish stock, vermouth, lemon, and shallots in a saucepan. Simmer over moderate heat until the liquid is reduced by half. Add the cream and continue cooking until the liquid is reduced somewhat. Add the sorrel. Increase the heat to bring the mixture to a boil. Immediately remove the pan from the heat. Cut the butter into small pieces and add to the sauce while still off the heat. Stir to melt the butter. Season the sauce with salt, pepper and optional lemon juice. Note: feel free to use all white wine to total 1 cup and omit the vermouth.
