Tuna Nicoise Salad

To be perfectly honest, I've always scoffed at the thought of a tuna nicoise salad. There are a few good reasons for this:

1) I dislike black olives - for the most part
2) I dislike cooked tuna - or rather, prefer it raw
3) I find potatoes to be a bit heavy for a salad
4) I think of a creamyish dressing when I think of the salad

These objections are all pretty poor I guess. I never really have considered a tuna nicoise salad seriously - that is, until the other night when for some reason it popped into my head that it would be the absolutely perfect meal to make! Go figure!

Perhaps I was more excited about eating it because I would be making it myself and could adjust flavors and cook the tuna exactly as I pleased.

For the dressing, I simply took a look at a suggested recipe, saw what ingredients went into and and then went on my merry way adding this and that to come up with a final product that I was pleased with.

Dressing
Juice 1/2 lemon
1 tsp whole grain mustard
splash caper juice
1/2 tsp. honey
1/2 tsp. red wine vinegar
pepper
sprig thyme, leaves removed
2 chives, minced
2 tsp. EVOO
1 tsp. mystery herb (see below)
1 small garlic clove, minced


MYSTERY Ingredient - has a bit of a sour/lemon taste



Tuna
tuna
salt
pepper
EVOO




Salad
3 small potatoes (I used yellow skin but you can use red)
1 egg, hard boiled
8 cherry tomatoes, halved
10-12 green beans, cut into 2 in. pieces
1/2-1 tsp. capers

For the dressing, add all of the ingredients with exception to the EVOO. In a slow stream, whisk the EVOO into the mixture until it has emulsified.

For the salad, I started by hard boiling the egg (putting the egg into cold water in sauce pan, bringing it up to a boil and then turning down the flame for 10 minutes so that the egg is cooking in the warm liquid but the bubbles aren't breaking the surface. After 10 minutes, put immediately into an ice bath. Using the same water (or different), add some salt and then bring the potatoes to a boil. After about 12 minutes, add the green beans. Once the potatoes are tender, remove both the potatoes and green beans and add to an ice bath to stop the cooking.

Halve the potatoes and toss those and the green beans with a bit of the vinaigrette to lightly coat.

To assemble, lay a bed of lettuce on a plate. Scatter the tomatoes and green beans on top. Arrange the potatoes and sliced egg (slized horizontally) on the salad. Throw on the capers.

Drizzle all over with dressing.

Meanwhile, heat oil in a pan until very hot. Add the tuna (rubbed in EVOO and salt and pepper) and sear for about one minute. Flip and cook for about one more minute (to desired doneness, for me, the rarer the better and I would have actually liked mine cooked a bit less. The recipe that I had ready said two minutes per side - that would have been an injustice to the perfect cut of tuna!!).

Slice and top the salad with the tuna. Add a touch of vinaigrette onto the tuna (do not saturate, you want the delicious tuna flavor to come through!!).

Enjoy!



I was soooo happy with this meal and extremely pleased with myself for putting it together. The flavors were truly explosive and complimentary. It was hearty without being heavy, my favorite type of dish.

Fabulous.