The recipe for this week for French Fridays with Dorie from Dorie Greenspan's Around My French Table cookbook, is Minted Zucchini Tagliatelle with Cucumbers and Lemon, found on page 124. The recipe is also here as Dorie contributed it to Bon Appetit magazine.
Ingredient list: zucchini, cucumber, sweet onion, lemon zest, mint leaves, lemon juice, and pistachio oil. (I thought this was going to have tagliatelle pasta in it when I first read the title, but the tagliatelle bit refers to the way the zucchini is cut into pasta-like ribbons, which was a whole lot of fun in itself.)
This time of year we all
have access to a lot of zucchini, cucumber, and mint so the recipe makes
good use of what's on hand now. It looks innocent enough, doesn't take a
lot of preparation, and requires only an hour in the frig to chill. The
recipe says it makes 6 servings so I made a third of it, figuring I
would taste a little to report on its goodness or not, take a photo as proof I made it, and keep the rest to
serve with dinner, but then I kept tasting until all of it was gone. I
ate both servings (shown on this plate in its entirety so you won't think I ate half a salad bowl or anything, but I maybe could have), all by myself.
What a great little salad! I was
scouting around reading some of the other "reports" and people weren't
all that excited about it, but I am here to tell you that I loved,
loved, loved this salad. It's fresh and light, and the mint and onion add a zing that peps everything up to the next level. The pistachio oil has that lovely nutty fruitiness. It just all works so well together. I will make it again and again. I will even
share it with Mark next time. It's that good...make it and judge for
yourself.
If you would like to see more recipes from this book, you can click here. Enrollment is open, feel free to follow along officially or unofficially. The group posts weekly on Fridays.
