salmon with sparkling wine and chive butter sauce

Salmon

Crack open a bottle of sparkling wine for the fancy flavoured butter sauce in this real celebratory fish dish.

1 cucumber, thinly sliced
1 tbsp salt
1 tbsp sugar
1 lemon, juice only
2 x 200g/7oz fillets lightly cold-smoked salmon (ideally organic), each sliced into 3 or 4 thin escalopes
dash oil
2 shallots, finely chopped
1 blade mace or a pinch ground mace
dash champagne vinegar
300ml/10fl oz sparkling wine
2 tbsp finely chopped fresh chives
200g/7oz salted butter, diced
squeeze lemon juice

To make the cured cucumber, place the cucumber slices in a bowl and top with the salt, sugar and lemon juice. Leave for 20 minutes to soften.
To make the salmon escalopes, heat a frying pan over a high heat. Lightly oil the escalopes and season with salt and pepper, to taste. Cook on both sides for about 30 seconds. Keep warm.
To make the sparkling wine and chive butter sauce, put the shallots and mace in a saucepan with the vinegar and sparkling wine. Cook until the liquid has reduced to a tablespoon and then gradually whisk in the diced butter. Taste, season and stir in the chives. Add a squeeze of lemon juice.
To serve, arrange the cucumbers on a plate, pour the sauce over and arrange the slices of salmon on top.