Steamed Striped Bass with Green Beans by Chef Ludo Lefebvre

Bienvenue à Ludo à la maison. Today we are going to do a classic French dish. It is a steamed fish with beurre blanc and green beans. Why it's classic beurre blanc? It's really one of the mother sauces of French cuisine. And as you know, in French cuisine we use a little bit of butter. Beurre blanc, it's a very, very classic French sauce. It's a sauce I grew up with. Why? Because also in Burgundy we produce wine. So that's how we do beurre blanc in Burgundy. Voilà, so I'm going to dice my shallot. Hop, like that. So why I'm dicing very, very fine? It's because I'm going to serve the shallot with my sauce. I'm going to put the shallot in the saucepan. And now, for a good beurre blanc, what we need? We need a good white wine. Put a little touch of Petit Chablis. I'm from Chablis, so Petit Petit Chablis. So make sure to use a good quality of wine. Don't be cheap, guys, okay? It's, you know, what is the flavor of your sauce so you want a good white wine. Try to use more like a Chablis, something dry, mineral. It's great. And I'm going to put a little bit of Champagne vinegar. A little bit, okay? Now I'm going to reduce by half. So now we're going to blanch the green beans. We're going to use a Pellegrino water. Why Pellegrino? Because the Pellegrino water has a lot of salt. And actually, it's the perfect water to blanch vegetables. It's pretty amazing. It really gives a good flavor to the vegetables. Now we're going to bring to boil the water, okay? We have ice here. I'm going to put some water in the ice. Voila. So now we're going to clean our green beans. Take off the two, and just leave it like that, okay? Up in the ice. To keep the color of the green beans, you want to shock them before in ice water. Voila, okay? Very cool. Put them in the boiling water. Boom. And then after one day cook, ice water again. Like this, you set the color of the green beans. They're so beautiful. Green. I'm going to check my green beans now. I love the green beans not too al dente. I really don't like when you go to a restaurant and all the green vegetables are like al dente. Can I have my vegetable cooked, please? It's not pasta. Cook your vegetable. Put back right away in the ice water. So you set the color. You want to stop to cook right away, so ice water, that's the best way. Here the green beans have a beautiful color. So when you do a beurre blanc, make sure your butter is room temp, okay? Very important for also the texture of the butter. So we're going to dice the butter now. It's a lot of butter, but don't be afraid of butter. You know, I'm sure in so many years we're going to say butter is good for you. So when you add your butter, you need to make sure your reduction is boiling to melt the butter very fast. It's very important for the texture of the butter. It's an emulsion. On y va. Allez, on y va. Now we're going to monter au beurre. Monter au beurre, it means emulsion with butter. Make sure the reduction is boiling and you add the butter. Add the butter slowly. If you add the butter too fast, the texture of the beurre blanc is not going to be the same. So again, simple sauce, simple sauce. French food is very simple, classic, but it's all about the quality of the ingredients, okay? Don't forget, your first job as a chef is to go hunting for good ingredients. It's very important the way you pick your ingredients. The white wine needs to be good and the butter, of course, needs to be good. You know, butter is flavor. It's perfect now. Now I'm going to turn off the beurre blanc. Add a little bit of salt, a little bit of white pepper, a little bit of lemon juice. So now you can also strain the beurre blanc and it's just an emulsion of butter. I like to keep the shallot, okay? Gives some texture, it goes well with the green beans. Time to prep the fish. Today I have a beautiful striped bass and I'm going to take off the skin. Go like that. Just put your knife like that and you just... So make sure you have a good knife for that, of course. Okay. I'm going to take off a little bit of the blood here because I don't like to see the blood like that when the fish steams. I think it's pretty ugly and not appetizing. I'm going to put my fish here. So just like that. A little bit of salt. White pepper, not black pepper, white. Everywhere on the fish, put lemon juice. Just a little bit. Put the lemon here. Put the vegetable here. So I'm going to warm up the green beans at the same time as the fish. Et voilà! That's a steam oven. You see the smoke? The steam, sorry. It's a steam oven. Works very well. Et voilà. Five, six minutes, guys, okay? I love to cook more and more with the steamer oven. Because it's very healthy. Until you put the butter. So now the dish is very healthy. But now I'm going to put the beurre blanc. Okay, to really lacquer the fish like that. With the beurre blanc. Now we have our steamed striped bass with beurre blanc and green beans. So with my little fish, I'm going to drink a little bit of Chablis. Okay? Voilà. And now... Mmm. The beurre blanc. You can eat everything with the beurre blanc. Everything. So good. I love the texture of the fish. It's very moist, you know, not dry. And you feel good because you have a lot of beurre blanc. But the green beans are very healthy, so you feel good. You don't feel bad.