A quick yet curiously elegant sauce for fish (and leafy greens) and also a good time to use some of the glass jar of green peppercorns in brine that you bought once and never got around to using. Or used once and have seen, waiting forlornly, in the fridge door ever since.
I got a little surprise when I opened mine. Rather than the spoonable individual peppercorns that I am accustomed to, this particular brand had preserved the peppercorns on the vine - pretty to use as a garnish, a pain in the neck to use if you are rushing to add them to sauce. Make sure you have your peppercorns ready to go before you start cooking your sauce since this takes all of 3 minutes from start to finish.
As mentioned above, I spoon this over salmon or tuna but have also mixed it into cooked leafy greens which I then baked as a gratin with a topping of buttered panko. Yum.
This should make a little over 1/2 cup of sauce, which doesn't seem like much. While being pleasantly tangy, this sauce is also very rich.
1 shallot, peeled and very finely diced
Juice from 1 lemon
1 Tbsp white wine
1 Tbsp butter
2 Tbsps green peppercorns, drained
1/2 cup sour cream
Put the butter and the shallot in a small sauce pan over low heat until the butter has melted.
Stir, add the white wine and allow to cook until the shallot is translucent. Stir from time to time so that the butter and shallots do not burn.
Add the sour cream and the peppercorns and heat, again stirring from time to time, until the sour cream is warmed through and starting to just bubble around the edges.
Remove from the heat, add the lemon juice and serve with the fish of your choice.