In his new cooking series, shared exclusively with Food & Wine, French chef and L.A. restaurateur Ludo Lefebvre demos one of his favorite easy recipes. Here, Ludo cleans a salmon filet and gives a classic cream sauce a playful twist with curry. Get the full recipe here.
Read the transcript of this video
[MUSIC] We're gonna do seared salmon with citrus sauce. Salmon's
a very, very classic fish we use in French cooking.
In this country we get some beautiful, beautiful salmon. The
salmon we get in Alaska, they are amazing. We're gonna
do a classic French sauce, and then we're gonna take
this sauce and twist it a little bit with citrus,
and a little bit of curry. Why citrus? Because I
live in California and I love citrus. Citrus is one
of my favorite fruits So now I put my shallots
in my pan here. Touch of dry vermouth. So also
in my sauce I'm going to put a little bit
of muscadet, okay? Muscadet is a dry wine from Loire
Valley, okay? I'm going to reduce this liquid now to
dry. Have my fillet of fresh salmon. I am going
to take out the bone first. Okay. So, take my
little tweezer. [MUSIC] See,make sure to pull up in the
direction of the bone. Okay. So, I am going to
take off this part here. You should have follow the
shape of the fish. And then, go here. Just go
slowly like this. And it's just, very easy. Pull the
skin. And com. [MUSIC] So I'm going to take off
all the blood line here. It's not like it's bad
blood, it just don't look that good on the plate.
We're going to do some beautiful slice of salmon like
this square. I take my hand like this up. See
my finger from finger. So all my fish has the
same Size now. So, salmon can be thick. So, what
I do sometime, I slide the fish like this. This
really do the perfect square. So, just make sure is
I'm gonna pound a little bit the fish. Just to
give it's perfect shape. Gentle. Of course don't go like
bang Oro Blanco Grapefruit. I just go all around with
my knife between the skin and the fruit. [SOUND] Pink
grapefruit. Same way. [UNKNOWN] On top with the orange. [SOUND]
Look at this beautiful lemon. And now I'm going to
cut the segment. It's very simple. You go between the
two white line [SOUND] [FOREIGN] Okay, so it was a
joke. [LAUGH] It will be good on TV, yeah? Take
your time I'll be careful guys. Especially when you have
sharp blades, be careful, okay? Voila. Take that and you
just press it you get all the juice. the juice.
I love to take a very, very classic French recipe
like this. And after just to play with that and
add more flavor. When you really master the classic. Master
how to do the sauce, how to cook the fish,
and any classic. Then after I can be a little
bit creative and a little bit playful with the classic.
And put a little bit here. There, I'm going to
reduce it again. Do you see all the reduction? Almost
no juice. Hey guys, now we put the creme, cold/d
cup of creme. See that, guys over there, be generous.
[MUSIC] Perfect, so now I'm going to strain out my
sauce. So, now we know it doesn't very basic cream
sauce just to make a little bit more fancy with
the citrus. I'm going to put a little bit of
a curry. So, add a little pinch of Fleur de
sel. Okay, our sauce is good. So, when you're seasoning
the salt, don't go to close like this. It's so
difficult Okay. Your hand is traveling on the top of
the salmon like this and you just let rain white
pepper. I always use white pepper, it is good for
fish. We will cook the salmon very slowly. Okay. So
I am going to take my salmon, then we go
gentle, gentle like this. So we are cooking slowly the
salmon. We are giving like three minutes each side. No
coloration. Very gentle. See? My salmon have no coloration. I'm
going to do now, I'm going to put some few
segments here to make the sauce a little bit citrusy.
Look at this color. Beautiful. Salmon is good. I'm taking
the salmon now. Gentle. Salmon here on paper towel. Okay,
So now I'm going to buzz the sauce, just to
mix my citrus segment in my sauce like this. Just
for decoration and flavor, a little bit of segment, everywhere
like this. This dish is also all about a lot
of sauce. So be generous, some few Amaranth leaves. Saute
them a little bit like this just beautiful color. Add
some acidity to your plate which is beautiful [INAUDIBLE]. You
should serve a beautiful Muscadet from Loire Valley. You use
this wine to do the sauce so it makes sense
to really pair your salmon. [INAUDIBLE] Then to test So
I look at it, the salmon is like butter. [MUSIC]
That's good guys. [FOREIGN] [MUSIC] [SOUND]
Advertisement