8.2 Champagne cooking recipes
Cooking with champagne, at home or in the restaurant, was a frequent gourmet’s pleasure from the 18th century till around 1930. Champagne is an all-purpose ingredient in steaming of seafood or fish, cooking a chicken or frying a schnitzel and refining a dessert. Indeed, champagne adds finesse to these dishes.

Here is a frequently proven recipe for fish dishes: St. Pierre à la Champagne
Ingredients for four portions:
- 1 John Dory (ready to cook, ca. 1,5 kg)
- 700 g tomatoes (red, yellow, green)
- 1 bunch scallions
- 1 bunch basil
- Herbes de Provence
- salt
- pepper
- 3 tablespoonfull of olive oil
- 150 mL champagne
- 1 lemon
Rinse the John Dory with cold water and let it drain on a paper towel.
Wash the tomatoes and remove the cores. Slice the tomatoes and place them on a baking tray with baking paper.
Wash the scallions, chop them finely and spread them over the tomatoes. Wash the basil, toss it and spread half of it over the tomatoes as well.
Season the vegetables with Herbes de Provence, salt and pepper and baste them with the olive oil.
Place the fish on the tomatoes and salt it. Pour the champagne over the fish and bake it in the pre-heated oven at 180 °C (356 °F) (convection oven: 160 °C, 320 °F, gas: level 2–3) for about 35 minutes. The fish is cooked when the bone of the back can easily be pulled and the skin can easily be peeled away from the fish.
Chop the rest of the basil coarsely. At the end of the cooking time squeeze half a lemon over the fish and sprinkle the basil over it.