A product of the sun, the Niçoise salad is traditionally built around ripe tomatoes, egg, olives, anchovies or tuna and should be vibrant with the crisp, sweet flavours of summer vegetables(turns out adding potatoes and greens beans is highly controversial). Either way, it’s a bright and breezy salad that makes an easy dinner. This one deserves a lovely cold glass of rosé or riesling to wash it down.
Ingredients
4
Tomatoes, of various colours (or 1 punnet coloured cherry tomatoes), use up to 5 (Main)
1 splash
Red wine vinegar
1 splash
Olive oil
12 small
New potatoes, steamed until tender then cooled (Main)
3
Baby cucumbers (Main)
4
Eggs, soft-hard boiled, peeled (Main)
2
Spring onions
1 can
Pams tuna, in olive oil, use up to 2, small cans (Main)
½
Lemons, use the zest and juice only
20
Kalamata olives (Main)
1 sprinkle
Dill, or tarragon or parsley
8
White anchovies, see note below (Main)
Directions
Cut tomatoes into even segments (or halve cherry tomatoes), sprinkle with sea salt flakes, drizzle with a splash each of vinegar and olive oil and leave to marinate for 30 minutes.
Cut potatoes and cucumber into even-sized wedges, cut eggs into quarters and thinly slice spring onions.
To make a quick dressing, drain the juices from the tomatoes into a screw top jar. Add the oil from the can of tuna, lemon zest and juice and shake well to combine.
To serve, evenly arrange potato, tomato, cucumber and olives across 4 plates. Top with flaky chunks of tuna, egg, spring onion and picked dill. Garnish with white anchovies, season with freshly ground black pepper and drizzle with the dressing.
