Weekend in a French Kitchen July 4th and 5th, 2015

And we’re off!! Today is my first post for the Weekend in a French Kitchen Challenge. I am joining Three French Hens & One Chickadee – Confessions of a Culinary Diva, Chez Nous, A Mama, Baby & Shar-pei in the Kitchen, and Blue Bungalow, as well as several other bloggers like myself, in cooking from Mimi Thorisson’s A Kitchen in France and Daniel Boulud and Dorie Greenspan’s  Cafe Boulud Cookbook.

Today I made both recipes for the first weekend in July. Up First is Skate with Brown Butter and Capers from Chef Boulud. Since skate is almost impossible to find in my tiny rural town I used the chart at http://www.reasors.com/foodfav/seafood/chart_sea.php, that was passed along to our group by Christy. I found that flounder, which is easily found here, is a good substitution for skate, so I used that. This dish was amazing. I loved the brown butter and capers on the potatoes as well as the fish. Instead of the yukon gold potatoes called for I used some new red potatoes I already had on hand. I will definitely be using this method of poaching fish again.

Flounder with Brown Butter and Capers

Next up was Tomato Salad with Parsley and Shallots from Mimi’s book. I found some wonderful heirloom tomatoes at our local Friday night Farmers Market. I used some chocolate cherry, yellow cherry, a beautiful yellow tomato and a Cherokee Purple for my salad. Loved the simple dressing of flat leaf parsley, Dijon, shallots and Olive oil. This salad made a great accompaniment to the fish and potato dish.

Tomato Salad with Parsley and Shallots

I think we’re off to a wonderful start. If you’d like to join us any time during the next 2 1/2 years in cooking from either or both of these great books visit http://weekendinafrenchkitchen.com/ for more information. Also if you’d like to check out some of the others posts from bloggers who made these same recipes go to  LYL | Daniel’s Skate with Brown Butter & Capers  and LYL | Mimi’s Tomato Salad with Shallots & Parsley  Stay tuned for next weekends picks.