A Classic French Salad Niçoise Recipe

This salad is a classic combination of a few key ingredients – it must include either tuna or anchovies, eggs and green beans (see my recipe tale above…). But I always treat it as an improvisation based on what’s in the fridge and store cupboard. If I have eggs and tuna then I have the basis of a Niçoise… 

1. Cook the potatoes. Wash but don’t peel tender small salad potatoes. Cut them in half horizontally so you have two flat shell-like halves. Boil in salted water until tender. Drain and then add a couple teaspoons of vinegar and slosh the potatoes around in the pan until evenly coated, then add a tablespoon of olive oil and a good grinding of pepper – continue moving the pan to evenly coat, put to one side with the lid ajar on the pan.
2. Boil the eggs. Ahh – but for how long? Very good question… It depends on so many things that if I – or anybody else – attempt to tell you precisely we will be wrong. So it’s best to do a trial with individual eggs, peeling and cutting to see the result of your timings – then replicating for the remainder. NB: The eggs in my photo were, large free range white eggs taken from the fridge and plunged in lots of boiling water. They were boiled for 8 minutes and then drained and rested for 1 minute and then plunged into cold water. I like them cooked so they hard but soft – if you see what I mean – if any part is still runny, I find this can be cloying and leave an uncomfortably raw eggy taste in the mouth…
3. Cook the greens. Just until tender. Plunge in cold water to stop cooking and keep the colour bright green.
4. Drain the fish. Don’t be tempted to use the oil. It is a very strange phenomenon: although the fish is kept perfectly well and is very tasty – the oil it is kept in is almost wretchingly fishy and metallic. Put it in your recycling pot – not your food.
5. Finish the salad. Wash and spin the lettuce, cut the tomatoes how you like, chop the chives, make a dressing 3 to 1 oil to vinegar and season with salt and pepper, peel and cut the eggs in half. Assemble on a large serving plate or individual plates. First lettuce, then potatoes and greens, then tomatoes, finally position the eggs and scatter tuna and anchovy around. Sprinkle with chopped chives and garnish with black olives.
6. Serve. With crusty bread.