Choron sauce is a tomato flavored hollandaise that is perfect with eggs and trout. Trout and egg breakfasts are traditional in mountain stream regions and of course, New Orleans. As you have seen in my past blogs, I never post a boring breakfast recipe. This recipe is a great eye opener!
Hollandaise Sauce Recipe: Melt 3-4 ounces of unsalted butter in a sauce pot over medium heat. Cook till the butter gives off a light hazelnut aroma. Clarify the butter and discard the butter solids on the bottom of the pan. Keep the butter warm over very low heat.
Put 2 egg yokes in a mixing bowl.
Add a little bit of warm water to the yokes while stirring. (About a 1/2 teaspoon of warm water per egg yoke.) This will make the eggs easy to control while whisking. (Too much water added will cause the whisking process mentioned later to take way too much time. Do not add lemon juice at the beginning of making a Hollandaise Sauce. The sauce will be disproportionately lemon flavored if you do so.)
Whisk the egg yoke and water in a mixing bowl over a double boiler set on medium low heat. Constantly whisk, non stop, till till the eggs souffle (puff up) and ribbons appear in the eggs from the whisk.
Remove the mixing bowl from the double boiler and immediately whisk the eggs while adding the warm butter one teaspoon at a time till the eggs start "grabbing" the butter. Return the start of the hollandaise to the double boiler. (You can not stop whisking at this point!) Thin stream the melted butter into the eggs while whisking till the egg sauce is formed. (The proportion of butter to eggs is 1 1/2 ounces of butter to one egg yoke!)
Now, whisk in a small squeeze of lemon juice.
Add a pinch of white pepper, a pinch of cayenne pepper and sea salt.
The sauce should have a hint of lemon flavor and not taste like a lemon sauce.
Place the Hollandaise in a ceramic ramekin. Set the ramekin in a bain marie set on very low heat and stir the sauce occasionally.
Hollandaise is a French mother sauce that is used for hundreds of recipes. The basic hollandaise recipe never changes.
Choron Sauce Recipe: In a small sauce pot, reduce a little bit of red wine vinegar and chopped shallots over medium high heat.
Add some chopped ripe tomato and a splash of water.
Add a little dab of tomato paste.
Reduce the tomato mixture till it is as thick as a tomato paste.
Press the tomato mixture through a fine sieve.
Add enough of the tomato paste mixture to the hollandaise to give it a pale orange color and a rich tomato flavor. Keep the choron sauce warm in a bain marie.
Trout Recipe: Cut through the flesh side (not the skin side) of the back bone of a whole, gutted, head on, rainbow trout. (Traditionally, leaving the head on is part of the presentation and it shows how fresh the trout is.)
Slice under the rib bones to ease their removal. Pull all the bones out of the trout. Trim the gill fat flap sections. Retain the fins.
Brush a baking pan with unsalted butter. Set the trout in the pan. Squeeze some lemon juice over the trout. Pour a splash of dry white wine on the trout. Sprinkle sea salt and black pepper on the fish. Drizzle a little bit of butter over the trout.
Place the trout in a 350 degree oven and bake till the trout is fully cooked.
Assembly: Poached two eggs in gently boiling water seasoned with sea salt.
Use a spatula to slide the baked trout onto a serving platter.
Set the poached eggs on top of the trout.
Spoon a generous amount of the choron sauce over the eggs and trout.
Garnish with parsley sprigs and lemon slices.
Delicious and very light on the palate! The light tomato flavor of the choron sauce is so tasty with eggs and trout. Fresh rainbow trout is very light in texture and flavor. Trout is one of the very best breakfast fish. This is an old school French dish that still has a place in the present age. This recipe's presentation is uncomplicated and yet very appealing. This is a very comfortable breakfast recipe. Yum! ... Shawna
