(Travelling again; sorry for a bit of haste in the posting)
Nicoise salad: green beans, lettuce, potato, tomato, hard-boiled eggs, capers, red onion, nicoise olives, and tuna. Er, is it anchovies, artichoke, green beans, red pepper, olives, no potato, and no lettuce? Or should you never skimp on garlic? Hmmm….Nicoise purists all have their different claims on the ingredients to the salad, but in general, salade nicoise is a gutsy thing–the sort of hearty bombastic countrytime salad for a hungry fisherman-type deal in my mind. In any innovation, with exception to the egg, the salad contains ingredients I enjoy, but I’m not a huge fan of them all together. I guess gutsy is not my thing because when I have nicoise salad, the ingredients tend to fight with each other rather than harmonize for me. And the fact that everywhere–from Paris to Omaha–seems to make it by dumping canned tuna on the rest and calling it a day–not all that interesting to my taste buds.
So I’m not a great proponent of salade nicoise. But I do like its eclectic springtime spirit. Hence, my version is a sort of free riff off of nicoise, with a nod towards spring freshness: butter/Bibb/Boston lettuce, green beans, pea shoots, mushrooms, onion, tomato, potato, and chunk-smoked salmon instead of canned tuna. And in the case above, I added edible flowers, just to make it that much more of a spring special. Maybe it’s not as gutsy, but it makes a pretty stand-up lunch.
By the way, this tastes great with plain ol’ dijon vinaigrette, although you can try some of the tarragon cream. Reserve a teaspoon of the vinaigrette and spoon it over your warm cooked potatoes–the potatoes will absorb the dressing and taste phenomenal.
Bottoms up this weekend, one hopes!
Filed under: Clean Food Daily, fish, nicoise, raw, salad
