Salade Niçoise
Nice's Salad of Raw Vegetables, Tuna, Anchovy and Egg
In Nice this is a salad of raw things. Tomatoes, radishes, spring onions, green pepper and tiny raw artichokes, with tuna, anchovies, olives and egg, dressed with olive oil alone. No potatoes, no green beans, nothing boiled except the eggs. It is arranged on the dish, not tossed.
The Nice recipe, for eight, rubs the dish with garlic, lays down mesclun and tomatoes, then adds the other vegetables without mixing, followed by tuna, quartered eggs, anchovies and black olives, and dresses it with olive oil and pepper just before serving. It states plainly that cooked vegetables, potatoes and green beans do not belong. The recipe carries the Cuisine Nissarde label, which the city uses to protect its traditional dishes.
Ingredients
Ingredients
- 1 garlic clove, halved
- 50 g mesclun or mixed young salad leaves
- 250 g ripe tomatoes, cut into wedges
- 125 g radishes, sliced
- 2 spring onions, sliced
- 1 small green pepper (the long, thin-skinned kind if possible), sliced into rings
- 1 tender celery heart stick, sliced
- 2 small purple artichokes, trimmed and very thinly sliced (optional)
- 100 g tuna in olive oil, drained, in chunks
- 4 anchovy fillets
- 25 g small black olives
- 2 eggs, hard-boiled for 10 minutes, peeled and quartered
- 50 ml extra virgin olive oil
- A few basil leaves
- Fine sea salt and black pepper
Method
- Prepare the dish Rub the inside of a wide serving dish with the cut garlic. Salt the tomato wedges lightly and leave them for 5 minutes.
- Arrange Spread the leaves over the dish and arrange the tomatoes on top. Add the radishes, spring onions, pepper, celery and artichoke in separate groups. Do not mix.
- Top Add the tuna, eggs, anchovies and olives, and tear over the basil.
- Dress Just before serving, pour the olive oil over everything and grind over some pepper. Serve at once, with bread.
There is no vinegar in the Nice recipe. The salted tomatoes supply the acidity.