A christmas chateau really is a fabulous experience.

Marinated Shrimp with Champagne Beurre Blanc

Now that we are open as a christmas castle vacation rental, we get to share our favourite Christmas recipes with a chateau full of lovely guests. This is one of our favourite Christmas recipes. We found it originally at epicurious.com and made some minor changes. We use Vouvray as it is our local bubbly and absolutely to die for. We save the champagne for drinking. We also use only 3/4 of the butter in the recipe, otherwise it can turn out a bit greazy.

A nice festive touch is to use Pink peppercorns as opposed to black peppercorns. May be next time we do a black and white theme christmas dinner or dinner party and we will use black peppercorns, but I think pink is pretty for Christmas.

Shrimp
1 cup Champagne or brut Vouvray locally from the Loire Valley
1/4 cup extra-virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons minced shallots
1/2 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
24 extra-large uncooked shrimp (about 1 kilo), peeled with tail left intact, deveined
1 tablespoon minced fresh chives
1 tablespoon minced fresh tarragon
1 tablespoon minced fresh parsley

1 cup (2 sticks) chilled unsalted butter, cut into 16 pieces

Sauce base
2 cups Champagne or other dry sparkling wine like Vouvray
1/3 cup shallots finely chopped
2 tablespoons Champagne vinegar
1/4 teaspoon whole black or pink peppercorns

Preparation

For sauce base:
Combine Champagne, shallots, vinegar, and peppercorns in heavy medium saucepan. Boil until reduced to 1/4 cup liquid, about 20 minutes. (Can be made 4 hours ahead. Cover and let stand at room temperature.)
For shrimp:
Combine Champagne, olive oil, shallots, and ground pepper in resealable plastic bag. Add shrimp to bag and seal; shake bag to coat shrimp evenly. Marinate shrimp at room temperature at least 30 minutes and up to 1 hour, turning bag occasionally. Mix chives, tarragon, and parsley in small bowl.

Preheat broiler. Spray broiler pan with nonstick vegetable oil spray. Drain shrimp; discard plastic bag with marinade. Arrange shrimp on prepared pan in single layer. Broil shrimp until just opaque in center, about 2 minutes per side. Stand 3 shrimp, tails upright, in center of each plate.

Rewarm the sauce base over medium-low heat. Whisk in butter one piece at a time, just allowing each to melt before adding next (do not boil or sauce will separate). Season beurre blanc to taste with salt and pepper.

Spoon warm sauce around shrimp. Sprinkle with fresh herbs and serve.

Go ahead and spoil yourself this year with a christmas castle