"Le Canon, Part III" Salade Nicoise

I have told you all, more than once, that I know no French. So if the article before "Canon" is incorrect, I apologize. In fact, if the word for "Canon" is not "Canon" in French, I apologize for that too. And for anyone I offend with my musings on salade nicoise, yet another apology.

No, I am not wearing ashes and sackcloth today, nor did I get confused on the way to Lent. I am walking on unfamiliar territory here, and I don't wish to offend....THIS TIME.

Salade nicoise is one of the dishes that I consider to be part of the "French canon" of cooking. It's fairly ubiquitous. You can find it in bad greasy spoon diners, and you can find it in good French restaurants. Everybody "knows" what it is, but everyone does it differently. There seems to be some general agreement on what goes into it, as the basics, but then, things change. That's sort of the way things are with "canonic" dishes. There are always a few basic, constants, and then there are variables.

In researching salade nicoise, what I found was that most recipes said that the "essentials" were soft, butter type lettuce, black olives , hard boiled eggs, green beans, tomatoes, cooked potatoes, and canned tuna (in olive oil). The dressing is supposed to contain garlic, and anchovies.

You've seen it on menus with rice in it, or pasta, or cheese. You've seen it with chick peas. Who knows? But you almost always DO see it with the basic ingredients above. Where people vary, it seems, is in the AMOUNT of those basic ingredients. I have seen recipes, for example, with as many as six hard boiled eggs, then halved, to serve four people, and a pound of green beans, with minimal tuna, and minimal lettuce. I've also seen it with fewer eggs, more tuna, and fewer vegetables. So, what is one to do?

Damned if I know. I don't codify these things, I just cook. And I want to present my salad, which I guess should be called " A salad in the style of salade nicoise."

This was born out of necessity, and goodies in the refrigerator. Here, at peak summer, there is always a bowl of cooked beets around. The little tiny ones. I bake them when I'm cooking something else, and since Guy and I both love them, they go into salads, or get mixed with things. For example, baby golden beets and cooked green beans, in a creme fraiche dressing, is something you should try.

I also had a bunch of left over cooked green beans. "Haricot verts" to be exact, which I had spent a small fortune on , for beans (7 bucks a pound). They were not getting thrown out. We also had potatoes around, as we always do. And we were looking for a filling, somewhat less fattening dish than the quesadillas we had eaten on Saturday. So a salad was in the offing. I got some soft lettuces from Nevia. I also got half a pound of fresh tuna from Phil's stand (after teasing Carl, his grandson, for about fifteen minutes about flirting with two lady cops. I wish you had been there. Talk about going out of his league). Now, just about every recipe that I looked at which dealt with salade nicoise contains the stern admonition FRESH TUNA IS NEVER USED IN SALADE NICOSE.

Oops. Oh well. I also left out the hard boiled eggs. I hate them. And I included beets, which are not in the "canon." And the dressing was a mustard vinaigrette, not an "achiode" which is the combination of anchovies and garlic.

I seared the tuna very quickly, at very high heat, for about 90 seconds a side, and then sliced it thin. I cut the beets in half. I had four cooked potatoes, that I diced into pieces. And the beans were already cooked. I also had four really ripe heirloom tomatoes, cut into slices, rather than wedges. The lettuce was baby , and clean. All the makings of a salad.

What I do want to explain here, is how I dress a salad with components like this. I always make my dressing right in the salad bowl. Vinegar first, and then salt. In this case, there was mustard, so I emulsified that into the vinegar. Then the olive oil, about four parts to the vinegar and mustard. I completely forgot about olives until we sat down

When I have a salad that has more than greens in it, I make a quick mental "check" of what ingredients are strongly flavored, and which are not. In this case, the beets, the beans, and the potatoes fell into the not so strongly flavored ingredients. I put them, and the lettuce into the bowl, and tossed them with my hands, until everything was coated. Then the tomatoes and the tuna went on top of the salad.

The reason for putting the tomatoes on top, incidentally, has to do both with flavor, and their liquidity. If you mix tomatoes into a salad, they will begin to "weep" and dilute everything and generally create a mess. So try not to do that. In fact, I don't usually put tomatoes into a salad unless it's a tomato salad per se.

So it wasn't authentic, but it WAS good. Lots of summery things, all combined, with just a touch of protein, for a nice light Sunday lunch. Really good.

We ate it all, but if there were left overs, we could have made another classic of french cooking, the sandwich called "pan bagnat." That is one of my favorites too.

Try it. Leave out the beets if they make you say "EEEEEWWWWW"