Nicoise (fr. Nicoise) is also called salad in a nice way. You will taste a piece, and it seems to smell like fresh sea breeze, the warmth of green hills soaked in the sun and needles, the luxurious life of the regulars of Cannes, Antibes and Nice. Due to its great popularity, the classic Nicoise salad, which includes anchovies, tomatoes, olives, garlic and olive oil, has overgrown with various modifications. Now it’s hard to figure out which recipe was first and which one was derivative.
It is also unclear when and who came up with the idea to replace democratic anchovies with more expensive, fatty tuna. But the plan came to the taste of the broad masses. Today, tuna nicoise salad is on the restaurant and festive menu. But if the chef began to cook it, modifications are simply inevitable. Creative imagination and healthy competition forced them to use such original ingredients as green beans, chickpeas, lettuce, capers, artichokes, hard-boiled eggs in the salad. Refueling was also rethought: tarragon, garlic, sugar, Dijon mustard, balsamic vinegar began to be added to olive oil.
In order not to depart from traditions, we will prepare a Nicoise salad with tuna, using anchovies in oil along with this fish. What do we need more? Quite an extensive list! No wonder this salad is considered festive, delicious. But more on that later, and now we are preparing a gas station. She must be infused for at least twenty minutes. We clean a clove of garlic, cut and crush in a mortar. Tear finely with your hands 7-10 leaves of fresh basil. In a jar with a lid, mix seven soup spoons of extra virgin olive oil with garlic. Add basil, salt and pepper to taste. Pour one and a half tablespoons of wine vinegar, screw the lid on, several times vigorously shake the container so that all the ingredients are mixed.
Now you can cook the salad of Nicoise with tuna. In salted boiling water we pour 200 g of green green beans and let it cook for just five minutes so that it does not lose its hardness and fresh color. We recline in a colander and rinse with cold water. Finely chop another clove of garlic. Fry it in two tablespoons of olive oil. Add the beans and cook for two minutes. Sprinkle with parsley, turn off the heat, set to cool. Then pour olive oil and a spoonful of wine vinegar.
Hard boiled three eggs, cut them into quarters. Small quail will look very nice in a salad - then you need to take 6 pieces, cut into halves. Disassemble the lettuce into leaves. Now we chop 4 tomatoes, three young onions, half of the bell pepper, with a dozen large black olives. Eight slices of anchovy fillet, if too salted, can be washed or soaked in milk. They will also go to a tuna nicoise salad. The recipe recommends saving them for decoration along with eggs and olives.
We strain the jar of tuna, disassemble the fillet into small pieces. Now we begin to add our salad. We cover the dish with leaves. We lay onion, tomatoes, fried green beans, pepper in layers. These layers can be repeated again. Shake the sauce and season the tuna nicoise salad. Decorate with eggs, olives, fish slices on top.