Cooking with Julia

Yes it is that time again. I cracked open my copy of Mastering the Art of French Cooking. Today I decided to make Beurre Blanc or White Butter, which is a hot butter sauce. In the movie Julie & Julia, Julia Child explains beurre blanc to her sister Dort as a creamy, light, frothy... with, with a kind of a fantastic... subtle kind of... (At this point she is lost for words, she cannot find the right word to describe this, as she says, fantastic sauce. This is when her wonderful husband chimes in...) Paul Child: Tangy. It has a tanginess. Julia and Paul were a match made in heaven. A true couple. They are how I picture couples should be.

Anyway back to the sauce. I whipped some up and put it over a filet of salmon and asparagus. It was delicious to say the least and I ate it all up. It definitely had that tanginess to it. *grin*

    For about 1 cup 

    The flavor base
A 6-cup medium-weight, stainless saucepan
2-1/2 Tb white-wine vinegar
2-1/2 Tb dry white wine, vermouth, or lemon juice
1 Tb very finely minced shallots of green onions
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp white pepper
2 Tb butter

Boil the liquid, shallots or onions, and seasonings with the butter until reduced to a syrupy consistency - about 1-1/2 tablespoon should remain.

   The butter-Added the classic way
A wire whip
8 ounces (2 sticks) best quality unsalted butter, well chilled, and cut into 16 pieces
Salt, pepper, and lemon juice as needed

Remove saucepan from heat and immediately beat in 2 pieces of chilled butter. As the butter softens and creams in the liquid, beat in another piece. Then set the saucepan over very low heat and, beating constantly, continue adding successive pieces of butter as each previous piece has almost creamed into the sauce. The sauce will be thick and ivory-colored, the consistency of a light hollandaise. Immediately remove from heat as soon as all the butter has been used. Beat in additional seasonings to taste.

There is also an Adding butter - The fast-boil way but I chose to do it the classic way. Maybe next time I will try the fast-boil way.

*Recipe taken right from Mastering the Art of French Cooking.

Make sure you have all of your ingredients together ahead of time since this is a quick process. 

And yes those are all empty bottles of wine. *wink* What can I say I enjoy wine. I prefer in red: Malbec and in white: Riesling.

Just look at that tender filet of salmon with that wonderful tangy sauce.

A fantastic dinner overall, my glitterites.

xo

*Shine like Glitter*
My beurre blanc turned out a little thinner than I expect it should be.
Probably because I stopped to snap a few pictures here and there.
I need to get a live in photographer.
Yeah right if only.
I also used lemon juice instead of dry white wine or vermouth. I think next time I will try it with one of those.
If you have tried this recipe before and have any tips for me let me know. I would love to hear them.