Classic, Iconic Recipes

I've recently become a little obsessed with classic recipes I've never tasted or cooked. Some are a little intimidating, some are inspiring, some just look plain delicious!

My first thought was Lobster Thermidor. Luckily for me, there's one restaurant here in town where you can order it, so I won't have to assassinate a lobster! I've never cooked a live lobster or crab, and I'm not entirely sure I'd have the stomach for it. Yes yes, I know, someone has to kill it for me to eat it and I know it's a little hypocritical of me to not want to kill the creature but love to eat it, but hey, I don't kill cows either and I loves me some beefs!

Speaking of beefs... my mind then wandered to Beef Wellington. Unfortunately no restaurants in the area that I've found serve Beef Wellington, so I'm going to have to try my hand at making it myself. After several google searches, I finally resigned myself to the fact that the only place I'm gonna find a classic, unaltered recipe for Beef Wellington is from the woman herself: Julia Child. This is definitely going to be a weekend project, as Julia insists that for a Beef Wellington to be good, you must make the dough from scratch. Not only that, but each component to the dish is a complete recipe in and of itself. It's like 4 or 5 recipes all in one. As much as I look forward to the challenge of making this, it's definitely going to stretch my skills. I imagine I'll learn a lot in the process!

Next up (and probably on my home menu for next week): Cock-a-leekie Soup. I always wondered what it was, as the name is intriguing, but I never thought to look it up until recently. So far I've learned that it's a very traditional Scottish dish, and I plan to make it traditionally: Yes, I'm including the prunes!

While I have a few more ideas for classic, iconic recipes (from many different cultures), I'd LOVE some suggestions from you guys. Is there something your family makes that is unique to your culture or background? Some classic French dish that always sounded fancy but you've never tasted or made? Something you've heard a reference to in a movie and wondered what it tasted like (like me and the cock-a-leekie soup lol)? Leave me a comment! I'd love a bunch of suggestions!

P.S. the photos in this post are obviously borrowed as I haven't made or eaten these recipes yet!