Salade Niçoise
Of all main-course salads, the Niçoise is my all-time favorite, with its fresh butter-lettuce foundation; its carefully cooked, beautifully green green beans; its colorful contrast of halved hard-boiled eggs, ripe red tomatoes, and black olives; all fortified by chunks of tunafish and freshly opened anchovies. It’s a perfect luncheon dish, to my mind, winter, summer, spring, and fall—an inspired combination that pleases everyone.
Recipe information
Yield
serves 6
Ingredients
Preparation
Step 1
Arrange the lettuce leaves on a large platter or in a shallow bowl. Shortly before serving, toss the beans with the shallots, spoonfuls of vinaigrette, and salt and pepper. Baste the tomatoes with a spoonful of vinaigrette. Place the potatoes in the center of the platter and arrange a mound of beans at either end, with tomatoes and small mounds of tuna at strategic intervals. Ring the platter with halves of hard-boiled eggs, sunny side up, and curl an anchovy on top of each. Spoon more vinaigrette over all; scatter on olives, capers, and parsley, and serve.
VARIATIONS
Step 2
COLD ROAST MEAT SALAD. Thinly slice, or cut into cubes or strips, a pound of cold roast or braised beef, veal, or pork, and refrigerate for several hours in a bowl with sufficient vinaigrette to enrobe the pieces, turning and basting several times. To serve, arrange nicely on a platter, surrounded with pickles, capers, olives, tomatoes, sliced red onions and green peppers, cooked green beans, or whatever appeals to you.
Step 3
SYRIAN LAMB SALAD. Marinate for several hours a dozen thin slices of cold roast leg of lamb in garlic-flavored vinaigrette plus several puréed freshly opened anchovies. Mound 3 cups or so of prepared bulgur (cracked wheat) in the center of a platter, and surround with the lamb slices. Garnish as you wish with olives, hard-boiled eggs, tomato wedges, sliced bell peppers, marinated cucumber (page 23).
Step 4
BREAST OF PHEASANT, DUCK, CHICKEN, OR TURKEY SERVED IN A SALAD. Marinate slices of the cooked breast for 30 minutes or so in the vinaigrette. Then, for each serving, arrange several strips over a bed of tender frizzy lettuce leaves. Baste with vinaigrette and decorate with small segments of orange, thin red-onion slices, and a spoonful of toasted pine nuts.
Freshly Opened Can of Anchovies
Step 5
Anchovies go “off” in taste when they sit around in an open can—which is probably why many people hate anchovies.
To Prepare Bulgur—Cracked Wheat
Step 6
Stir a quart of boiling water into 1 cup raw, dry bulgur. Let sit 15 minutes, or until pleasantly tender. Drain, rinse in cold water, and squeeze dry in a towel. Toss with 1 Tbs each of olive oil, grated onion, and chopped parsley. Season to taste with salt, pepper, and lemon juice.
