It’s Friday, and once again I’m going against the grain and posting a make-up recipe instead of the current week’s French Fridays with Dorie pick.
This week’s recipe involves zucchini blossoms. I am hoping (finger’s crossed!) that my garden will start producing zucchini blossoms very soon. It’s been a tough year for my vegetable garden. I am having a big problem with pests eating my sprouts and seedlings. Of the 24 or so green bean seeds I planted, only two sprouts look like they might survive. The rest were eaten, sometimes before they even broke through the soil. My zucchini plants are struggling as well. It looks like two or three of them have a good chance of surviving. If you see a zucchini blossom post from me in a few weeks, you will know they survived!
Instead of skipping this week altogether, I did a make-up from last month instead. Salmon Rillettes is a delicious spread made from a combination of fresh and smoked salmon. The fresh salmon is gently poached in white wine, then mashed with the smoked salmon, lemon zest, chopped shallot, lemon juice, and a bit of butter. After chilling, it’s ready to serve.
I served Salmon Rillettes for dinner with toasted baguette slices and a nice salad. I loved it! Though I served it for dinner, it would be excellent as an appetizer for a dinner party. I had leftovers for lunch on a bagel with cream cheese, and it was quite tasty!
We have made 3 rillettes now (sardine, salmon, and tuna), and this is my favorite.
I found the recipe for Salmon Rillettes on pbs.org. You can also find in in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
From Scratch 
With the exception of the sardines, I really enjoyed the rillettes selection in this book.
I hope your garden starts cooperating 🙂
Good catch up post. I hope your garden improves. It is so upsetting when you work so hard planting a garden and then the pest come.
The tomatoes are doing great, so at least we will get to enjoy those!
This was worth making up! I’d eat these rillettes for any meal! Glad you enjoyed them, too. Hope you get some zucchini blossoms.
Good luck with the garden. I didn’t find zucchini blossoms either.
good luck with your blossoms – we only just had a couple zucchini pop up on our plant at home so I was lucky to have found mine on a nearby farm! The salmon rillettes look tasty! I still have mine to catch up on!
Sorry to hear about your gardening woes. Sounds frustrating. Hopefully things improve and we get to see some zucchini blossoms on your blog soon.
Glad you enjoyed this. My fave was the sardines rillettes.
Nice make up, Karen! I really enjoyed the salmon rillettes…my favorite of the rillettes. Glad you enjoyed it!
I hope you are able to get some blossoms this summer, it was a lovely dish!
Sorry about your garden. I’ve had some problems this year, too!
I enjoyed the salmon rillettes too. Like you, I’m waiting for the zucchini to have blossoms. Of course, I just planted it 2 weeks ago, but I’m optimistic. We are in a CSA, so the only backyard vegetables I grow are peas (now over) and cherry tomatoes (I can’t afford to buy the amount that I would like to eat otherwise). I hope we both have success and will be able to try the fried blossoms because, from everyone else’s posts, they look great.
I just planted mine about 2 weeks ago too. I see some tiny buds, so I’m feeling optimistic!
The salmon rillettes were my favorite of the three also, Karen. I thought the combo of smoked and poached worked beautifully. I did as you did – made it for dinner and had some left for lunch the next day and with a glass of wine later in the afternoon. Honestly this would work for breakfast (bagel and cream cheese), morning snack, lunch, afternoon snack, appetizer or dinner. It’s just good. Hope the blossoms bloom. I am hoping to finally find some in my local Farmer’s Market this Saturday. Nice Post.
I was never able to find blossoms, and I’ve given up growing anything other than herbs and cherry tomatoes – too many “pests” here too! I just re-made the salmon rillettes too – I think they’re delicious. Yours look wonderful and I’m happy that you enjoyed!!