beurre blanc sauce (butter sauce)

The other day I was asked for a great sauce that would be good on fish. I thought of a beurre blanc sauce (butter sauce). This is a French sauce and can be pretty tricky, but so good on any kind of fish. Here is what you need:

1/2 cup white wine

1 shallot

4 whole black pepper corn

1 bay leaf

about 1/2 stick of butter

First place wine, shallot, pepper corn, and bay leaf in a sauce pan and reduce the wine to half. When this is done take the pepper corn, shallot, and bay leaf out of the sauce. Next is the tricky part: cut the butter into cubes, and take the sauce off heat. Then whisk the butter into the sauce.  If the sauce gets too cold or too hot, it can make the butter separate from the wine. So if you need the sauce to warm then place back on the heat quickly, continue to whisk, and enjoy.

Test kitchen update: red enchilada sauce (5) “My version”

I am sorry, I haven't had time to post about my findings on my version of the red enchilada sauce. Well here it is:

12 dried ancho chilis

4 chili de arbol

3 Roma tomatoes

1 large onion

4 cloves garlic

2 teaspoon Mexican oregano

1/8 teaspoon cumin

1 Mango

1 lime

First, rinse the dried chilis with cold water, and pat dry. Then tear them open and take the seeds and vines out. Then toast the chilis, tomatoes, onions and garlic in a dry pan. Keep turning the mixture so that it dos not burn; this will take about 5 minutes.

Then bring 6 cups of water to a boil and lower to a simmer for 15 minutes.

Next, puree the mixture in a blender. This is where I added the mango and lime juice. Blend until very smooth. Force the mixture through a strainer back into the pan.

Then simmer the sauce for about 20 minutes and add salt to taste.

This recipe is a modified version of the recipe at http://mexicanfoodie.com/red-enchilada-sauce-recipe/. This is a great recipe in itself, but I wanted to see how I could make it a little different. I added the mango and lime juice thinking that the lime and mango would give a more dominant flavor to the sauce, but it didn't. I found that it just sweetened the sauce a little more, which is not bad, but it did not change the flavor like I had hoped. Please let me know what you think. I may try this recipe with more lime juice and mango. I am also thinking that I can change the type of chilis to change the flavor a little more.

Test Kitchen update : Red Enchilada Sauce (4) "My version"

Today, I am going to test my own version of the enchilada sauce. I had to think about what I was going to change, to make it different from the traditional recipes. First, I think that I will keep the cooking methods the same and the ingredient as well. The differences are that I will add more tomato, a large onion, 1 more clove of garlic, lime juice, and 1 mango. I do not know what will happen, but I suspect that the mango will balance out the sweet and spicy flavors nicely. This is truly a gamble but it is all part of the creation of new flavors. I love mangos! I have tasted mangos with spicy flavors before, and it balances well together so I figured it will be very tasty.  I will add the mango and lime juice at the blender stage to get the maximum flavor from the mango. This may change the dominant flavor from the dried ancho chilies to the mango, as mangoes have a strong flavor.  I will post my findings tonight.