Of all salads, Salad Nicoise is my favorite! If it is on the menu, I inevitably order it! It has the perfect combination of foods – lettuce, tomato, green beans, hard cooked eggs, potatoes, black olives, capers, and tuna fish.
Pour on your favorite vinaigrette dressing, and the meal is complete!
For two servings you will need:
- 2 eggs - hard cooked
- 1/2 pound of small potatoes
- 1/2 pound of green beans – blanched
- 1/2 head of green lettuce – washed
- 1 can of tuna fish (7 ounces)
- 4 ounces of tomatoes
- 10 black olives
- 2 tablespoons of capers
- 1/2 cup of vinaigrette dressing
Step # 1 – Cook the eggs
Check out my 30-second Tips and Techniques Video on How to Boil an Egg. You can do this step well in advance, as hard cooked, unpeeled eggs will keep for about a week in the refrigerator.
Step # 2 – Cook the potatoes
Carefully drop some small potatoes (see below) into boiling water, adding some salt. Return the water to a boil and set the timer for about 12 (to 15-18) minutes. Before you remove them from the pan, stick a fork in them to make sure they are tender.
Cut the potatoes into bite-size pieces.
Step # 3 Blanch the green beans
“Blanching” means that you drop the green beans into a pot of boiling, salted water and let them cook for about 2 minutes. Remove them with a pair of tongs and immediately plunge them into a bowl of water with ice.
The ice water will stop the cooking process and keep them a nice bright green.
Step #4: Assembe the salad
(Be sure to wash the lettuce!) Spread the lettuce out on a plate.
Add the rest of the ingredients in clumps. It has a lot more “eye appeal” that way!
I splurged and bought imported tuna from a jar. It was expensive ($7) but worth every bite.
Sprinkle the capers over the salad. In the photo above, those are capers in the white dish shown with the tuna fish. They have a unique, almost peppery-salty taste that works really well in combination with all the other flavors of this salad. Capers are packed in brine and should be rinsed before you add them to the salad.
Once everything is added, serve this wonderful salad with your favorite vinaigrette dressing.
Oops! I almost forgot the black olives!
Enjoy!
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Andre said:
Sometimes I like to make it a little fancier by purchasing a nice piece of raw “sushi-grade” tuna from the market and coating it with pepper and searing it in a SUPER HOT pan for 25 seconds on each side and slicing the steak into a couple of pieces. The result is very pretty, delicious, and simple!