Serves: 4
Difficulty: Medium
Julien Lefebvre became Château Cordeillan-Bages’ Executive Chef in 2017 and nine months later, the château’s fine dining restaurant received a Michelin star. Here he shares his recipe for sea bass in a Bordelaise sauce for you to try at home… and why not see if your culinary skills pass muster by trying the chef’s cooking for yourself with a visit to Château Cordeillan-Bages, a gourmet retreat nestled in a vineyard on the edge of Pauillac, between the Gironde and the Atlantic?
Ingredients
- 1 sea bass
- 15g fish bones
- 10g butter
- 1 litre red Bordeaux wine
- 5g mixture of carrots, shallots, garlic and celery
- 4 artichokes
- 50g butter
- Salt and pepper to taste
Directions
1To make the Bordelaise sauce, roughly chop the carrots, shallots, garlic, celery. Break the fish bones into small pieces and gently brown in a pan with the veggies for about 15 minutes. Add the wine and cook for 20 minutes. Put through a conical strainer then add more wine, reduce to the desired consistency, and whisk in the butter. Set aside.
2Cut down the top of the artichokes by a third and wash them under running water. Cut off the stem and tie the artichokes so that the heart stays whole during cooking. Blanche for 5 minutes in boiling salted water. Cool them down, drain them, remove the small central leaves and the inedible choke (or fuzzy centre), and set them aside.
3Scale the fish and remove the fillets, cut them into 120g portions, and cook in grape seed oil at 46°C. Set aside and keep hot.
4Arrange the artichokes in a deep serving dish, then add the sea bass and the Bordelaise sauce.
