Nicoise Salad Salade Nicoise

Last summer we went to Spain and ate some of the best food I’ve ever had in my life. The most memorable of many memorable meals was a paella we ate at a fish restaurant hidden away in a market. I understand that seems an off topic start for a salad recipe from France but stay with me.

The reason that meal in Spain haunts me is because I left the table with the overwhelming sense that THAT was the way paella was supposed to taste. Whatever we had been doing at home was something but I could no longer call it paella because the scales, as it were, had fallen from my eyes.

It made me think a lot about authenticity and locality and history. What do those things mean when it comes to food? How important are they when I’m putting a meal on my table? I revere my own family food traditions, shouldn’t I take the traditions of other families in other places as seriously? That’s a lot to think about after eating some rice and seafood but it really was that good. It changed my perspective.

Here’s how it relates to Nicoise Salad Salad Nicoise. As the name suggests, it comes from a particular place (Nice, France) and has a particular backstory (it originally didn’t have tuna). The interesting thing is that over the last hundred years the opinion of what constitutes a “Nicoise Salad” has changed. Continues to change. And people get mad about it. The tension between tradition and innovation playing out in a salad. I can see both sides of the debate so the only truly strong opinion I hold is that it’s, without question, the very best thing to eat for lunch on the first day of spring that’s warm enough to sit outside.

Nigel Slater has some great thoughts about the perfect salad nicoise in this article from twenty years ago and I couldn’t agree more even though his recipe is different from this one. Thinking again about my questions from Spain I believe it’s a gift to know and understand your own food traditions and I’ll do my best to know and understand the food traditions of other places. In every case, it’s going to result in good food on the table.

Making

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4 for lunch in the sunshine

About 30 minutes

Ingredients

4 eggs, hardboiled to a jammy center

10 fingerling potatoes

4 handfuls of salad leaves

1 handful of green beans, trimmed

6 small tomatoes, quartered

1 can tuna

1 Tbsp capers, chopped

1/2 red onion, sliced thinly

12 Crespo pitted dry black olives (of course you can use different black olives but these are really good and worth finding)

Salt flakes

For the dressing

1/4 cup olive oil

Half as much red wine vinegar

2 cloves of garlic, finely chopped

2 anchovies in oil, finely chopped

Instructions

Start by boiling the EGGS and the POTATOES. Put both pots on to boil at the same time and set a timer for 6 minutes.

During those six minutes, get a big bowl and put in the SALAD LEAVES, GREEN BEANS, and TOMATOES. You don’t have to arrange it all nicely but it does add to the beauty of it, I think. Sprinkle a bit of SALT on the lettuce and tomatoes. Keep a light hand, the anchovies, tuna and capers will do most of this work later but you want the lettuce especially to get a bit of love.

In a small bowl put the TUNA and the CAPERS. If your tuna has been in oil use enough of that to loosen it a bit. If it was in water, you may need a splash of olive oil to mix.

The timer for the eggs is either going off or will momentarily. When it does, take them off the heat, pour out the hot water and fill the pan with the coldest water from the tap you can. Reset your timer for 6 minutes and press start.

Add the tuna mix to the bowl along with the RED ONIONS and BLACK OLIVES. If you can keep yourself from eating an olive or two out of the jar, good for you.

Get an empty jam jar out and pour in the OLIVE OIL and RED WINE VINEGAR. Chop the GARLIC and ANCHOVIES and add them in. Put the top on and set it aside. The timer for the potatoes is going to go off any second.

Drain the potatoes and let them cool. Pour out the water from the eggs and refill it with cold water. If you have a few minutes to let everything cool it will help with the egg peeling otherwise just crack on.

Peel the eggs, slice in half and arrange on your salad. When the potatoes are cool enough to handle, slice those in half too and arrange.

Get your jam jar and shake it vigorously for a minute. Or at least until everything is incorporated together. A minute actually feels quite long unless you’re used to doing it. Pour the dressing all over the salad. Go outside and enjoy in the sun.

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