Gratin de Pommes de Terre aux Anchois

Our order from Amazon.com arrived yesterday. Zack got his LSAT prep book and I got my cookbook. I only recently discovered the blog The Julie/Julia Project because my friend Will strongly recommended that I read "Julie & Julia: 365 Days, 524 Recipes, 1 Tiny Apartment Kitchen" by Julie Powell. I've been really entertained by Julie's attempts at following Julia Child's French recipes that I had to get Mastering the Art of French Cooking (Volume 1). Of course, I'm planning on getting volume 2 later on, but for now I'm content with working my way through volume 1.

Well, I still had some half-and-half left over, so I decided to use that to make Gratin de Pommes de Terres aux Anchois (Gratin of Potatoes, Onions, and Anchovies). I'm a big seafood lover but I've never been excited about canned fish like sardines and anchovies. I've only had it a couple times in salads. I definitely know that Zack has never tried anchovies before, so I was reluctant to go through with it.

First of all, the dish turned out great. It was really well-seasoned because of the anchovies and the heavily-salted water used to boil the potatoes. I really love the small portions. I've noticed that some American cookbooks call for absurd amounts of cheese, oil, etc. This recipe has few ingredients and the flavors of potato, onions and anchovies complement each other well. I was surprised by how good this tasted. Here's to success at my first attempt at authentic (?) French cooking.