French Fridays with Dorie and Walking Away: Wine-Poached Peach, Burrata and Prosciutto Salad

This week's French Fridays with Dorie recipe is actually Spice-Poached Apples or Pears, described by Dorie as one of the "most comforting and simplest French family sweets." Dorie likes to serve the fruit and its syrup with rice pudding or French toast, but it is usually served with nothing more than crème fraîche, heavy cream or plain yogurt.

Although I would have welcomed a little sweetness and comfort in my life with open arms, someone's stubborness, pride, ego and/or fears continue to stand in the way of great make-up sex working through this together.  So, my life has been turned upside down, like a bucket of ice water dumped over my head. It's been hard to work, sleep, eat (great diet), and listen to country music.  Geez, those country music lyrics really pierce the heart and open the floodgates...

Since cooking dinner for myself hasn't been too appealing, I've been drowning my sorrows at the local bars making the rounds to a few local spots for light dinners. I do like dining at the bar rather than sitting at a table by myself, especially at the local restaurants where I know many of the chefs and people who work there. The tourists are gone, we have our island back, and the restaurants are quiet and relaxing. Last Friday I met Alex, Chez Loma's new chef, and enjoyed his Steak Frites. On Tuesday, I stopped in at Leroy's Kitchen, stuck my head in the kitchen window to say hello to Chef Gregory, and sat at the bar with a glass of wine and his poached peach, burrata and prosciutto salad. I probably wouldn't have participated in this week's FFwD recipe, but for Greg's inspiration to adapt Dorie's recipe into his wonderful salad.

Rather than poaching apples or pears in water, honey, sugar, orange and lemon juice and zest, star anise, cinnamon and vanilla, and making a dessert out of them, I poached peach halves in chardonnay, star anise, cinnamon and vanilla. Once the peaches cooled, I nestled slices of fresh mozzarella (use burrata if you can find it) up against the wine and spice poached peach slices, wrapped them in prosciutto, and placed two or three of those tasty bundles on a bed of baby arugula lightly tossed in balsamic vinaigrette. I also crisped up a little chopped prosciutto and scattered it about. 

Chez Loma Steak Frites

Take it away, Keith

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French Fridays with Dorie is an online cooking group, dedicated to Dorie Greenspan‘s book Around My French Table: More Than 300 Recipes from My Home to Yours. As members of the group, we have purchased the cookbook and cook along as much as we can. There is a new recipe each week, and we post about that recipe on Friday. We are asked to refrain from posting the actual recipes on our blog. The book is filled with stunning photography, and personal stories about each recipe, which makes it that much more intriguing. I highly recommend adding it to your cookbook collection if you haven't already!