Salad Nicoise
Course: SaladsCuisine: FrenchDifficulty: Easy4
servings20
minutes20
minutesI love this salad. I love it better when you can get fresh tuna and just sear it and add it to the colorful ingredients on the plate, but finding fresh wild tuna can be challenging so I buy Tonnino Tuna. It comes in a jar and is always delicious. Plus there are so many varieties you really can’t go wrong. To make it a bit lighter, I mix 1 jar of the tuna in water with the tuna in olive oil and then offer a good squeeze of fresh lemon juice and toss it all together with a fork. It breaks up nicely and soaks in some of the lemon juice. I love that I can prep this salad ahead of time. When I boil the potatoes, I can par boil the green beans. You can do this the day before and just refrigerate. Or serve the greens with all the other ingredients and warm beans and potatoes. It your preference. I also take a lot of liberties when making this, as I sometimes add roasted red peppers, roasted cherry tomatoes from my garden, any vegetable I may have on hand.
Ingredients
10-12 small new potatoes
1 lb green beans, trimmed
1-2 lg heirloom tomatoes or 1 -2 cups cherry tomatoes
1 container arugula
1 container romaine, torn into larger pieces
2-4 eggs, hard boiled
3/4 cup kalamata olives, pitted is easier
2 jars of the Tonnino tuna or 1 1/4 pound wild fresh Tuna
2 lemons
Salt/Fresh ground pepper
1 teaspoon dijon mustard
4 Tablespoons olive oil
1 1/2 Tablespoon lemon juice or 1/2 to 1 teaspoon red wine vinegar
Anchovies
Fresh herbs
Directions
- In a large pot, place the cleaned potatoes. Cover potatoes with water till it levels at about 2 inches above them. Add a generous amount of salt. Bring the water to a boil and toss in the green beans, reduce water to a simmer and cook beans until tender about 4 minutes then cool in an ice bath. Continue to simmer the potatoes until fork tender. Remove from pot and set aside.
- Take out 4 plates and place a handful of each green on the plates.
- Sprinkle plates with olives, sliced tomatoes or cherry tomatoes, green beans and potatoes.
- Remove the shells from the hard boiled eggs and gently cut in half. Place those on the edge of each plate.
- In a jar, mix together the lemon juice, olive oil, mustard, salt/pepper and shake well. Spoon the tuna onto each plate and drizzle with the vinaigrette.
- Place two anchovies on top of the tuna. Garnish with fresh herbs.
