Tilapia with Crawfish Champagne Cream Sauce

Our friends the Hebert's are Houston "transplants" from Lake Charles, LA. Just this weekend they opened a crawfish to go store, Hebert's Hot Tails. I went by on Sunday and bought 10 pounds of crawfish. Ryan was on his way back from New Hampshire and I thought it would be a good dinner for us. Since Ryan got home so late, we didn't eat as much as we normally would so I had a good 3 or 4 pounds leftover. I really wanted to find something to use the leftovers in other than gumbo or etouffee so I thought some sort of cream sauce over fish would be yummy.

I asked for some suggestions on a local message board that I participate in and one of the girls suggested this Champagne Cream Sauce adapted from one by Emeril Lagasse. As she notes, champagne, cream and butter are a perfect combination.

Crawfish Champagne Cream Sauce
adapted from Emeril Lagasse

1/4 cup chopped shallots
1/2 cup Champagne
3/4 cups heavy cream
2 tablespoons cold unsalted butter, cut into 1/2-inch pieces
1/4 teaspoon salt
1/8 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
1/2 teaspoon Champagne vinegar
1/2 cup cooked crawfish, peeled

In a saucepan, combine the shallots and Champagne. Bring to a boil and cook until almost all liquid evaporates, about 6 minutes.

Add the heavy cream, bring to a boil and simmer until cream thickens and coats the back of a spoon, and is reduced by nearly 50 percent in volume, about 3 minutes.
Whisk in the butter until smooth and strain the sauce through a fine mesh strainer, pressing on the solids to extract as much liquid as possible.

Add Crawfish. Season, to taste, with salt, pepper, and vinegar and serve immediately over fish or shellfish.

Note: If sauce is made in advance, keep warm in a bain marie over barely simmering water. I used a "homemade" double boiler to keep it warm while I waited for the potatoes to cook.

For the fish, I used the Sauteed Fish recipe minus the cajun seasoning, then topped with the crawfish cream sauce.