Nice salad or Salade Niçoise

How to make a nice salad my way.  This salad recipe  that Macu sends me is an adaptation of the famous salad and goes with the tastes of your home. This dish is very typical of the French region of Nice that we will soon publish on the blog. It normally consists of fresh raw vegetables (tomato, green and red pepper, sometimes cucumber, celery, and raw tender artichoke). Perhaps some pickles such as capers, hard-boiled eggs, anchovies and sometimes tuna, onion, garlic and Nice olives (small and black), all washed down with olive oil and flavored with fresh basil.

Contrary to the traditional recipe, this one that we are presented does not contain rice, potatoes, cheese, pasta or sautéed vegetables among its ingredients. So with this salad we will spend little time in the kitchen. Both in preparation and in cleaning, we will enjoy more of our vacations and we will dine like Marquises.

As famous as a free range salad or the famous Waldorf salad , the freshness and quality of the ingredients is the differentiating point. In summer almost all salads look wonderful to us. Also if you take advantage of the tuna season and put a good cut of fresh grilled tuna (or even the barbecue and serve it directly from there), it becomes this delicious recipe. Like all, it supports thousands of variants. It is a unique light, tasty and most appetizing dish. I hope you like it and if you want to prepare the original you already have a place to start.

Salad preparation

1. We put a bed of lettuce on a large flat plate and season with salt and pepper.
2. We cook the eggs. We cover them with cold water and cook 10 minutes from the boil. We should not cook them any longer as a dark greenish halo forms around the yolk. And this is unpleasant to the eye, with these indications they have to be perfect. They are cooled, peeled and reserved. You can see this video where we explain it step by step.

1. We wash the tomatoes very well and cut into medium pieces. We reserve.
2. We place the tomato, the hard-boiled egg in eighths and the black olives (preferably pitted) on top of the salad.
3. We grill the tuna over medium-high heat, so that it is toasted on the outside. But do not overdo it (if it is in a barbecue on live coals it may already be to die for).
4. Season with salt and pepper and add the tuna to the salad.
5. We prepare a vinaigrette with 3 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil, 1 tablespoon of wine vinegar and 2 tablespoons of olive oil. The olive or olive pâté is a vegetable puree or pâté whose recipe is based on olives or olives with a very characteristic flavor.
6. We emulsify and distribute to taste on the salad. Enjoy this salad.

The French recommend omitting tuna when accompanying a fish dish. Also change the potatoes if they appear in another part of the dinner or meal.