A Jackie Kennedy Inspired Lunch.

Lori Lynn, who writes Taste With The Eyes, wrote about a preparing a Kennedy themed dinner party. It inspired me to create one of the dishes on her blog. It is an over the top salad with green and yellow beans interspersed with slices of foie gras, served over butter lettuce with dijon vinaigrette. It was an amazing combination of flavors, textures, and colors. Visit Lori's blog Here.

I also pulled out one of my books on the Kennedy's "In the Kennedy Style" written by Letitia Baldrige (Jackie's Social Sec) and Rene Verdon (White House chef for the Kennedy administration). From that book I chose to make Homard en Bellevue, which was a fish course served at a state dinner on May 11, 1962 honoring Andre Malroux, an important French diplomat and author. In the book, it is a lobster salad served under aspic. While personally I like aspics, I find alot of Americans do not, so I served the salad with Tarragon vinaigrette instead of being covered with aspic.

Homard en Bellevue has an interesting history. It was created for King Louis XV by Madame Pompadour, his mistress, or rather his mistress's staff-I heard she wasn't much of a cook herslf. Bellevue was the name of the chateau Louis built for her.

First I made a potato salad with small diced potatoes, baby turnips, carrots, and peas, dressed with mayonaise flavored with tarragon vinegar. Lobster tails are poached and pulled from their shells. When the lobster cools, slice the tails into 1/2" slices. Mound the potato salad into the lobster shells and lay the lobster slices across the salad. I served the stuffred lobster tails on a salad of pea shoots with tarragon vinaigrette on the side.