HONEY, I COOKED THE SALAD NICOISE!
Why save the good stuff for just one part of the year when you can all-year-round it?
When there is a wind nipping at your heels, and the word ‘cardigan’ springs to mind for the first time in months, even the thought of my favourite salad can leave me cold.
Unless it’s hot.
Can you cook a Salad Nicoise? Let’s see. I pan-fried some salmon, cooked green beans and potato, and swapped a boiled egg for fried. Kept the olives and anchovies, of course, and the red onion.
Tomatoes are on the change, but I suggest if you have good ones, keep them fresh, and if they lack that cosmic tomato spirit, then roast them for 15 minutes first to intensify the flavour.
And that’s it. I cooked Nicoise salad, allowing it to segue from summer into autumn.
As is my wont whenever I think I have a stupefyingly original idea, I google it (only to discover, sometimes, that I came up with it myself twenty years ago). But no, it seems the only person with the nous to think of a hot Nicoise Salad, is Ms Goop herself, Gwyneth Paltrow. Here’s a link to hers, done for Food & Wine magazine.
And here’s mine. Think of it as cardigan cooking.
COOKED SALAD NICOISE.
2 x 200 g NZ salmon fillets
1 tbsp olive oil
300g green beans, topped but not tailed
8 small potatoes, unpeeled
Good handful cocktail (small) tomatoes eg Sampari
3 tbsp mixed black olives or kalamata
1 red onion, finely sliced
1 tbsp salted capers, rinsed
4 good eggs
6 anchovy fillets
Dressing:
4 tbsp extra virgin olive oil
2 tbsp red wine vinegar
1 tsp Dijon mustard
sea salt and pepper
If roasting the tomatoes, heat oven to 180C, brush tomatoes with olive oil, and bake for 20 minutes until softened.
Cook the green beans in a pot of simmering salted water for 3 minutes or until tender/crisp, then scoop them out and refresh in cold water.
Add the potatoes to the pot and simmer until tender, about 20 minutes, then drain and cut in half lengthwise, or cut into cubes.
Brush the salmon skin with oil and cook skin-side down, in a hot, dry pan until the skin is crisp, then flip and cook the other side for 1 minute.
Fry the eggs to your liking.
Whisk the dressing ingredients together.
Add the sliced red onion, olives, capers, green beans and potatoes and lightly toss, then pick the lot up in your fingers, allowing dressing to drip off, and distribute between plates.
Arrange the salmon and fried egg on the plates (I like smooshing the salmon to break it up a bit), and arrange the anchovies on top of the potatoes and eggs.
Spoon over the remaining dressing and serve. Serves 4.
TIPS
# Add a couple of lemon wedges.
# Also great with smoked trout instead of salmon.
# Instead of tossing the salad ingredients together, consider just dipping each group – the beans, the sliced onion, the chopped potato – in the dressing consecutively and arranging them on each plate; it looks so nice. Then arrange capers, olives, anchovies on relevant bits.
# Add avocado halves, or roasted red capsicum, but not too many extras, or the plot will be lost.
# Arrange salty ingredients near bland ones, eg anchovies and olives with eggs and potatoes.
# You can cook the green beans, eggs and potatoes ahead, but don’t refrigerate, it seems to kill them.
# If you want lettuce as well, go for baby cos.
# Skip the green beans and potato and smash the rest into a baguette for lunch, or turn into a burger with pickles and mayo.
# I find salmon very rich, so am in the habit of buying a single 200g fillet and cutting it in half lengthwise into two fingers for the two of us. I know - mean, right? But there’s enough for it to still count on the plate, but also just be one of the ingredients, not necessarily a protein hero.
Thanks for dropping by! Thanks to Annie for the gorgeous table napkins in the background. Special thanks to Terry for the fried eggs. He cracks each one into a small bowl, heats a little oil in a small pan, then gently tips the egg into the pan, holding the pan at an angle to contain the egg in one place, then when the white sets at the edges, he places the pan flat on the heat and covers it with a lid. Works every time – cooked white, softly runny yolk, and a nice shape.
I would like to acknowledge the traditional owners of the lands and waters upon which I work, live, cook and play; the Gadigal people of the Eora Nation. Thank you for sharing your culture, traditions, knowledge, spirit, art, music, humour and food traditions, allowing us all to experience a greater sense of belonging in this ancient land.
This dish matches the changing seasons. Gamay is a wine which is great this transition month from autumn to winter, especially for us Melbournites. So how about having a bottle. There are more and more Ozzies examples around now, too.
And thanks Terry