Sasa Recipe

Salmon with Blackberry Creme Fraiche Tarragon Sauce

There are some recipes that you just want to grab all of your friends and say ohmygod you need to make this now. Now! What are you waiting for? This is one of those recipes.

It comes from Portland chef Courtney Sproule, and uses that nifty culinary trick of combining just a few ingredients to form an end result that tastes like nothing else. Creme fraiche, white wine, blackberries, fresh tarragon and a bit of lemon zest come together to create a sauce thats rich, light, herbal and punchy all at the same time. And as much as I thought that fruit + fish would be a truly terrible combination, its just amazing on salmon. Its a perfect greater-than-the-sum-of-its-parts dish to wow guests at your next dinner party (or to make a dinner party out of a normal weekday).

Sproule makes this sauce with a variety of fruits, from blueberries to gooseberries, but I think our Northwest blackberries (which are fruiting everywhere around town these days) are just about perfect. You can read about this recipe — as well as other blackberry preparations, and my dogged love for the prickly canes — over at NPRs Kitchen Window.