Salad Nicoise
I love this salad and cannot take credit for it or it’s deliciousness, but it is a family and crowd pleaser! My friend Debra introduced it to me and her and my friend Kelly, introduced her to it a couple of years ago. I think Kelly found it in a Gourmet magazine in the early 2000’s. We’ve each made our own renditions to it, using sliced fresh peppers instead of roasted to bottled garlic vinaigrette dressing and canned tuna instead of grilled (but grilled is absolutely devine!) Try it, make it your own, but what you won’t be able to do is eat it for leftovers, because there’s rarely anything left afterward.
Ingredients
Canned Tuna in Olive Oil
Blanched French Green Beans
Boiled New Potatoes quartered
Roasted Red Peppers
Hard Boiled Eggs
Artichoke Hearts
Butter Beans
Butter or Boston Lettuce
Garlic Shallot Vinaigrette (recipe to follow)
1/2 C red-wine vinegar, 2 1/2 T minced shallot, 2 tsp Dijon mustard, 1 large garlic clove minced and mashed to a paste with 1/2 tsp kosher salt, 1 C extra-virgin olive oil, 1 1/2 tsp Herbs de Provence, 1 1/2 T finely julienned fresh basil
Directions
Dressing: combine vinegar, shallot, mustard, garlic paste and anchovy Paste with olive oil in a jar and shake until well combined. Add Herbs de Provence & basil and shake again to combine.
Blanch green beans and drain into a colander. Cook potatoes until soft and dice into 1/4’s, drizzle with 2-3 T of the dressing while warm. Set aside to cool. Boil eggs, peel and quarter. I buy jarred roasted peppers, artichokes, butter beans and tuna for easy assembly, but you can grill tuna steaks, roast red peppers and steam artichoke hearts, but this is about easy preparation. For that matter you could even buy preboiled eggs.
Assemble lettuce leaves on large platter and beginning assembling vegetables and tuna on top. I like to line them up as I go.
Drizzle dressing over top of veg and tuna assembled on the platter leaving extra on the side in a bowl or jar to people to add if they wish.