HomeQuick KitchenSaladsFishStep-by-step recipe for the classic Niçoise salad with tuna
Category: Salads with fish
Author: Irina Rogozina
2
40 min
105 kcal
5/5 (1)
Ingredients
Leaf salad | 1 bunch |
Cherry tomato | 200-250 g |
Capers | 80-100 g |
Anchovies | 200-250 g |
Green beans | 150-170 g |
Eggs | 3-4 pcs. |
Olives | 60-70 g |
Ingredients
Olive oil) | 7-8 tbsp. l. |
Basil | 7-8 sheets |
Dijon mustard | 1-2 tsp. |
Wine vinegar or lemon juice | 1.5-2 tbsp. l. |
Garlic | 1 clove |
Salt | Taste |
Pepper | Taste |
Niçoise is a famous Provençal salad that came to us from Nice, France. There is a version that this salad was first prepared for choreographer George Balanchine at the beginning of the 20th century. Many recipes for this salad include rice or potatoes. But the original version does not provide for this, since ballet dancers always choose only light and low-calorie dishes. The highlight of this salad is its dressing. Quite often it is prepared with chopped anchovies. But these same anchovies can simply be added to the rest of the salad ingredients. Instead of regular eggs, it is better to use quail eggs, as they will look more beautiful together with cherry tomatoes. But instead of cherry tomatoes, you can also take ordinary medium-sized tomatoes.
Classic recipe with potatoes
Niçoise salad with tuna, the classic recipe for which is quite appetizing and satisfying, can be prepared using fresh fish, vegetables and spices. Tuna is somewhat reminiscent of meat in terms of taste and nutrition. However, this product does not have a rich fishy smell. The calorie content of the snack is not very high. Therefore, the dish can be included in the diet menu, but only in small quantities.
What ingredients will you need?
To create a tasty and nutritious salad at home, you need to use the following ingredients:
- potato tubers – 300 g;
- basil leaves – 3 pcs.;
- lettuce leaves - 1 bunch;
- olive oil – 20 ml;
- honey – 20 g;
- tomato – 200 g;
- fresh frozen tuna – 350 g;
- balsamic vinegar – 10 ml;
- garlic clove – 1 pc.;
- eggs – 110 g.
Chicken eggs can be boiled either hard-boiled or soft-boiled. When using the latter option, the egg yolk should be soft and tender, and the white should become firmer. This will make it convenient to peel the product. The boiling time for a soft-boiled egg is approximately 4 minutes.
Step-by-step cooking process
Step-by-step instructions for preparing a dish with your own hands:
- Potato tubers must be boiled and then peeled. Next, you will need to cut the vegetables into medium-sized cubes.
- Eggs should be boiled, cooled and shelled.
- To create the sauce, place a garlic clove and finely chopped basil leaves in a container. Next, add honey, olive oil and balsamic vinegar. The composition must be stirred well and set aside to infuse.
- You will need to place the tuna fillet into a saucepan with heated oil, frying the steaks for 3 minutes. from each side. The result is a medium-rare fish. To bring semi-finished products to full readiness, increase the frying time by 2 minutes. for each side.
- Place the cooked tuna on a plate to cool. Next, you need to use a sharp knife to cut the fish into plates of equal thickness.
- Tomatoes need to be washed under running water and cut into slices.
- After preparing all the components, you will need to place the lettuce leaves in a container.
- Place chopped tomatoes and potatoes on top.
- Next you need to add chopped eggs and pieces of fried tuna.
After dressing the salad with sauce, it can be served immediately.
Rules for serving dishes, decoration
Once cooking is complete, the salad can be served immediately. It is best to distribute the snack into portioned plates. You can sprinkle the delicacy on top with chopped fresh herbs.
How to make Nice tuna salad
- Boil the potatoes in their skins in advance. Then cool a little, peel, fry in a frying pan with added oil.
- Cut the onion into thin half rings.
- Place green beans (we used frozen) in a saucepan, add water, bring to a boil, cook for 2 minutes. Place in a sieve and immediately rinse with cold water to stop the cooking process and preserve the beautiful green color of the beans.
- Let's make the gas station. Usually in Niçoise salad recipes it is recommended to beat it with a whisk, gradually pouring in the oil. We'll show you an easier way to make salad dressing. This is a secret from chef Jamie Oliver. Place, pour, pour all the ingredients at once into a small jar with a tight-fitting lid. Yes, the garlic needs to be peeled and put through a press before doing this. Close the jar and shake it with your hands. The mixture will become opaque and thicker - this will turn it into an emulsion of the consistency we need.
- We collect Niçoise. Place lettuce leaves in a large container. If they are large, we will tear them with our hands. We lay out the tuna pieces, having first removed the backbone and broken especially large pieces into pieces.
- Next - cherry tomatoes, cut in half or into quarters.
- Then pieces of fried potatoes, onions, beans, halves of hard-boiled quail eggs, olives and finely chopped anchovy fillets. A few tomatoes and eggs can be left for decoration.
- Pour the dressing over it all and mix gently with two forks.
Let Niçoise soak for about 5 minutes, transfer it in a heap onto a large flat dish and serve.
Have you been to the French Riviera for a long time? At least taste it. Bon appetit!
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Ingredients:
Cooking steps:
Nicoise is a traditional dish of French cuisine, or rather, Nicoise comes from Nice. There is a version among culinary historians that this salad was invented by the famous French choreographer George Balanchine. Initially, it was prepared only from tomatoes, garlic and olives, adding anchovies. Currently, there are many options for preparing this salad. Various fresh vegetables are put into the niçoise: cucumbers, celery, peppers, beans and even rice and potatoes are used, although many chefs and culinary experts claim that neither potatoes nor rice are categorically suitable for this salad.
1. Peel the onion and cut into thin half rings. Place in a bowl, add vinegar and leave to marinate.
2. Boil green beans in boiling water for 4 minutes, then rinse in cold water.
3. Boil the eggs, cool. Cut the peeled eggs into quarters.
5. Also cut the tomatoes into quarters. Crumble the tuna with your hands or a fork.
6. Clean the fish, remove the bones, and disassemble the fillets into pieces.
7. Mix vinegar and oil in a cup. Add mustard. Pass the garlic through a garlic press and add to the sauce. Add salt and pepper. Whisk the sauce thoroughly until emulsified.
8. Wash the lettuce leaves and dry them a little. Divide among plates. Top with tuna and pickled onions.
9. Next add beans, eggs, fish. The olives and tomatoes are laid out last.
10. Pour the assembled salad generously with dressing. Serve with rice, potatoes or as a meal on its own. Bon appetit!
Note:
With poached egg
Niçoise salad with tuna, the classic recipe of which is incredibly nutritious, tender and piquant in taste, can be prepared together with canned fish, as well as a poached egg. The calorie content of the dish is quite high.
On average, 100 g of product contains approximately 252 kcal. For those who are on a diet, this snack option is not suitable.
The delicacy can be easily prepared at home. However, the difficulty comes in creating a poached egg. To make the cooking process easier, it is recommended to use a bag in which you will need to put a broken egg and boil until the white is completely cooked.
What ingredients will you need?
To make a cold snack with your own hands, you will need the following components:
Name of ingredients | Required amount |
Canned corn | 5 tbsp. l. |
Lemon juice | 25 ml |
Olive oil | 34 ml |
Bulgarian pepper | at your own discretion |
Fresh parsley | to your taste |
Tomato | 100 g |
Leaf lettuce | At your own discretion |
Fresh cucumber | 120 g |
Salt | taste |
Tuna in its own juice | jar |
Dill | to your taste |
Chicken egg | 55 g |
Eggs must be fresh. Due to this they will keep their shape. To give the snack a richer taste, you can additionally use aromatic spices that you like best.
Step-by-step cooking process
A detailed description of the process of creating a dish at home consists of the following steps:
- Lettuce leaves should be torn by hand.
- You will need to cut the tomato and cucumber into cubes.
- The greens must be finely chopped.
- The prepared components must be placed in a container, adding canned corn.
- Next, you need to put the canned tuna in its own juice, mashing the contents of the can with a fork.
- To create a poached egg, you need to put a bag greased with vegetable oil in a convenient container. Break a raw egg into a bag, tie it and place it in boiling water for 4 minutes. The bag should be greased with sunflower oil so that the egg does not stick during the cooking process and retains its shape.
- To create the dressing, you will need to mix olive oil with salt and lemon juice.
- The chopped ingredients should be poured with dressing.
After the ingredients are well mixed, you need to place a poached egg on top.
Rules for serving dishes, decoration
When ready, the product can be immediately sent to the table. When serving a snack on a festive table, it is recommended to decorate the dish with chopped fresh herbs or halves of black olives. It is advisable to take the latter without seeds, so that it is convenient to cut them.
Niçoise salad with poached meat
An original French appetizer with classic sauce.
Ingredients:
- Red onion - 1 pc.
- Branded dressing - to taste
- Eggs - 2 pcs.
- Olives - 5 pcs.
- Cherry - 5 pcs.
- Fresh tuna – 150 g
- Lettuce leaves
- Olives - 5 pcs.
- Potatoes - 1 pc.
- Capers - 10 pcs.
Preparation:
Boil the potatoes and cut into slices.
Chop the onion.
Cut capers, cherry tomatoes, olives and black olives into halves.
Boil the poached egg in boiling water.
Salt and pepper the tuna steak, fry the fish so that the center remains pinkish.
To do this, you need to fry the tuna for 1 minute on each side, but no more.
Place all the ingredients of the dish on lettuce leaves, place slices of chopped fried tuna and pour the sauce over the salad.
With anchovies
Niçoise salad with tuna and anchovies is very aromatic and appetizing. Initially, the classic recipe of the dish included only anchovies, olives, garlic cloves and tomatoes. However, to improve the taste, as well as to make the product more filling, eggs and tuna meat were included in the snack.
What ingredients will you need?
List of food products that are necessary for cutting and dressing your salad with your own hands:
- anchovies – 600 g;
- capers – 30 g;
- onion – 75 g;
- olives - a handful;
- olive oil – 85 ml;
- salad - bunch;
- lemon juice – 5 ml;
- salt, pepper - at your discretion;
- tomatoes – 400 g;
- canned tuna – 150 g;
- wine vinegar – 15 ml;
- garlic cloves – 1 pc.;
- chicken eggs – 220 g.
Instead of regular tomatoes, it is permissible to use cherry tomatoes. They have a richer taste and aroma. Olives must be pitted. Capers are not the main ingredient, so they can be omitted from the salad.
Step-by-step cooking process
Step-by-step instructions for making salad at home consists of the following steps:
- Add chopped garlic cloves, olive oil, pepper and salt and vinegar to the container. The components must be mixed and set aside to infuse.
- You will need to chop the onion into thin slices and marinate in 5 ml of vinegar, leaving the marinade to steep for about 30 minutes.
- Hard-boiled eggs must be divided into 4 parts.
- The salad must be washed and torn by hand.
- The tomatoes should be divided in half, and the capers and olives should be washed thoroughly.
- Anchovies must be divided into fillet parts, after removing the ridge.
- Place lettuce and onion in the container. Then the components must be mixed by adding ½ part of the dressing.
- You need to add capers with olives and tomatoes to the finished composition. After adding the sauce, the mixture should be thoroughly mixed.
- Next, you need to add the tuna with the egg, and put the anchovy on top of the rest of the ingredients.
When ready, lightly pepper the salad and sprinkle with lemon juice.
Rules for serving dishes, decoration
When ready, the dish can be served immediately. For a beautiful presentation, it is recommended to place the appetizer on lettuce leaves. Mashed potatoes or spaghetti are suitable as a side dish.
All about culinary art...
Salad nicoise is a true culinary masterpiece, the composition of which is still highly controversial. The dish was officially prepared for the first time in 1950-58 in France (in the city of Nice). Tuna began to be added to salads in the late sixties of the last century. Previously, the dish was prepared with olives and tomatoes, with the addition of anchovy fillets. The dressing was a sauce made from olive oil, garlic and wine vinegar.
How to make a classic nicoise? There is no specific recipe; the culinary masterpiece has many different variations. Its ingredients may be:
- capers;
- eggs;
- cucumber;
- peas;
- green beans;
- tomatoes;
- Bulgarian pepper;
- lettuce leaves;
- artichokes;
- purple onion.
Some cooks experiment with adding potatoes and rice to the recipe, although this is considered a departure from the classics.
The calorie content of the dish ranges from 118 to 127 kcal per 100 g.
This material provides options for instructions with photos and step-by-step descriptions that will help you prepare this divine dish.
With arugula
A cold appetizer with tuna, arugula and vegetables turns out to be quite juicy, nutritious and appetizing. Salad is a low-calorie dish. On average, 100 g of product contains approximately 151 kcal. Therefore, this delicacy is suitable for those who are on a diet. In this case, olive oil is used as a dressing.
What ingredients will you need?
Ingredients required for cutting and seasoning the product:
- white onion – 100 g;
- wine vinegar – 10 ml;
- olives – 100 g;
- olive oil – 50 ml;
- ground black pepper - at your discretion;
- tomato – 100 g;
- radish – 100 g;
- arugula – 100 g;
- salt - to your taste;
- tuna, canned in oil – 100 g;
- chicken eggs – 165 g.
Instead of olive oil, you can use sesame, linseed or mustard oil. This will allow you to diversify the taste and aroma of the finished treat. It is also permissible to include dried herbs in the form of oregano and black pepper in the dish.
Step-by-step cooking process
To properly make a dish at home, you must strictly adhere to the steps of the step-by-step process:
- The eggs need to be soft-boiled and cut into slices.
- Tomatoes and olives must be washed and cut into slices.
- White onions should be chopped into rings and radishes into slices.
- In a container you need to make a dressing by thoroughly mixing the pepper with salt, vinegar and olive oil.
After removing the brine from the tuna, place all the crushed ingredients in a bowl and soak in the dressing, stirring well. Sprinkle the delicacy with arugula on top.
Rules for serving dishes, decoration
After dressing, the finished salad can be served immediately. The dish can be eaten not only on weekdays, but also prepared for a holiday table. As an additional side dish, you can serve any porridge, mashed potatoes or pasta.
How to cook Niçoise
One of the traditional dishes of Provencal cuisine, which was named after the famous city of Nice, is the Niçoise dish. This hearty and unusual French salad is usually made from boiled eggs, fresh vegetables, anchovies (tuna), and olive oil. For a simple dressing, use wine vinegar or lemon juice. The dish will be even tastier if you season it with a flavorful sauce made from several ingredients.
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How to prepare Niçoise salad correctly, which recipe is better? In addition to the classic Provencal appetizer, there are many other interesting cooking methods. Standard ingredients are replaced or supplemented with rice, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans, chicken, and so on. Below is a recipe for creating a classic sauce for a French treat.
From Yulia Vysotskaya with beans
Niçoise salad with tuna, the classic recipe for which is very tender, satisfying and tasty, can be made together with green beans. The product is a high-calorie snack. On average, 100 g of product contains about 189 kcal. Therefore, you should not eat salad in large quantities, so as not to gain extra pounds.
What ingredients will you need?
List of food items needed to create your own snack:
- Dijon mustard – 75 g;
- capers – 15 pcs.;
- potato tubers – 700 g;
- onion – 75 g;
- fresh cucumber – 360 g;
- olive oil – 50 ml;
- sweet pepper – 100 g;
- cherry tomatoes – 200 g;
- lemon juice - at your discretion;
- tuna - can;
- vinegar, table salt, pepper - to your taste;
- green beans – 200 g;
- quail eggs – 63 g.
In order for the potatoes to hold their shape and not crumble during cooking, the boiled vegetable must be immersed in cold water with ice for about a few minutes.
For a piquant taste, it is advisable to use wine vinegar for dressing.
Step-by-step cooking process
Steps for a detailed description of the process of creating a salad at home:
- Green beans need to be boiled and cooled under running water.
- The potatoes must be boiled in their skins, peeled and cut into small pieces.
- Cherry tomatoes should be cut in half.
- The onion needs to be finely chopped and the bell pepper cut into strips.
- To make the dressing, mix mustard with lemon juice, salt, pepper and vinegar in a jar.
- After the quail eggs are boiled, you will need to remove the shell from them, combining them with the rest of the ingredients in a large salad bowl.
- The composition also needs to be supplemented with mashed canned fish and capers.
The article provides recipes for preparing Niçoise salad with tuna.
When all the ingredients are mixed together, pour the dressing over the dish and stir again.
Rules for serving dishes, decoration
The finished salad can be served as a stand-alone item or with a side dish of rice porridge or mashed potatoes.
French salad Niçoise according to the classic recipe
Kitchen utensils: blender, cutting board, blender, serving dish.
List of ingredients
For the salad:
Leaf salad | 1 bunch |
Cherry tomato | 200-250 g |
Capers | 80-100 g |
Anchovies | 200-250 g |
Green beans | 150-170 g |
Eggs | 3-4 pcs. |
Olives | 60-70 g |
For refueling:
Olive oil) | 7-8 tbsp. l. |
Basil | 7-8 sheets |
Dijon mustard | 1-2 tsp. |
Wine vinegar or lemon juice | 1.5-2 tbsp. l. |
Garlic | 1 clove |
Salt | Taste |
Pepper | Taste |
Cooking sequence
- First of all, boil the eggs. Here it should be taken into account that you need to take several more quails than usual. They require less time to prepare: approximately 5-7 minutes from the moment the water boils.
- Fill the finished eggs with cold water. This procedure will clean them better and cool down faster.
- Place the young bean pods in boiling water for five minutes, then remove and dip in cold water.
- While the eggs and beans are cooking, let's prepare the dressing.
- Place all the ingredients in a blender bowl and grind and mix at the same time.
- You can prepare the salad either in one container or lay it out in portions at once.
- We tear the washed lettuce leaves with our hands and place them on the prepared dish or plates. You can add arugula and spinach to the lettuce leaves.
- Place anchovies on the greens.
- Cut the olives into slices and sprinkle on the salad.
- Cut cherry and quail eggs in half and place on greens with fish. If you have regular eggs and tomatoes, then cut them into slices.
- Using a spoon, pour the dressing over the salad and serve.
Royal salad and salad with red fish are just as light and tasty.
From Jamie Oliver
Salad "Nicoise" with tuna, prepared according to Jamie Oliver's recipe, turns out to be very filling, nutritious and tasty. Moreover, this snack is not too high in calories. On average, 100 g of product contains approximately 125 kcal. The dish can be prepared both at lunchtime and in the evening.
What ingredients will you need?
List of ingredients needed to create a salad at home:
- large potato tuber – 100 g;
- lettuce leaf – 30 g;
- tuna meat – 70 g;
- olive oil – 50 ml;
- quail eggs – 36 g;
- sweet mustard – 7 g;
- table salt, pepper - at your discretion;
- asparagus – 30 g;
- tomatoes - to your taste.
To ensure that the salad dressing has a uniform consistency, it is recommended to mix the ingredients for the sauce in a jar with a lid.
Step-by-step cooking process
The step-by-step process of preparing a dish at home includes the following steps:
- Quail eggs should be hard-boiled and cut into halves.
- Boiled and peeled potatoes must be cut into small cubes and fried in vegetable oil until fully cooked.
- In a saucepan with heated olive oil, fry the tuna fillet on all sides for 1 minute. Afterwards the fish needs to be cut into small pieces.
- Asparagus should be boiled on low heat for 5 minutes, and then drained in a colander.
- Washed tomatoes must be chopped into small pieces.
- Lettuce leaves need to be washed, dried and torn into large pieces by hand.
- In a bowl you will need to place chopped lettuce, potatoes, tomatoes, green beans and fish fillets.
- To make the dressing, you need to mix olive oil with mustard, salt and pepper.
All ingredients will need to be placed in a container, supplemented with quail eggs and dressing. The resulting composition must be stirred well.
Rules for serving dishes, decoration
It is advisable to serve the finished dish while the tuna is hot. Due to this, the snack will have a rich aroma that stimulates the appetite. It is permissible to decorate the delicacy with olives or chopped white onions on top.
Canned tuna snack
In a simplified version, the Niçoise salad can be prepared with canned tuna fillet. This appetizer is ideal for a holiday feast.
Compound:
- 0.2 kg asparagus;
- 150 g canned food;
- 50 g lettuce leaves;
- 10 olives (preferably pitted);
- onion;
- 4 tomatoes;
- refined olive oil - 7 tbsp. l.;
- vinegar (wine) – 1 tbsp. l.;
- 2-3 cloves of garlic;
- basil;
- freshly ground pepper;
- salt.
Preparation:
- Let's prepare the dressing for the appetizer. Combine purified olive oil with vinegar.
- Peel the garlic cloves and squeeze them through a press.
- Add the garlic mass to the dressing, add salt, freshly ground pepper and a couple of chopped basil leaves, stir.
- Boil the beans, as in the previous recipe, and place them in a colander.
- Soak the beans in cold water.
- Then fry it for a couple of minutes in a frying pan, adding a few cloves of garlic. Place it on a plate.
- Cut the olives into two parts.
- Clean and chop the onion.
- Wash the tomatoes and chop them into small slices.
- Boil the eggs, peel and cut into cubes.
- Let's prepare the lettuce leaves: wash them and tear them.
- Place lettuce leaves in a salad bowl.
- Sprinkle them with onions on top.
- Place green beans in the center in the form of a slide.
- Place eggs and tomatoes around.
- Spread the canned food on top of the asparagus.
- Decorate the salad with olive halves. We pour the dressing over it. Ready!
From Gordon Ramsay
Niçoise salad with tuna, the classic recipe of which has a spicy taste and aroma due to the dressing, can easily be made at home. The dish turns out quite satisfying and tender. Therefore, it can be prepared both for lunch and a romantic dinner.
What ingredients will you need?
Ingredients you will need to prepare the product yourself:
- Dijon mustard – 20 g;
- capers – 30 g;
- canned tuna - can;
- red wine vinegar – 30 ml;
- lettuce – 100 g;
- new potatoes – 400 g;
- olives – 10 pcs.;
- olive oil – 17 ml;
- cherry tomatoes – 100 g;
- chopped parsley - 1 tbsp. l;
- green beans – 50 g;
- anchovy fillet – 10 pcs.;
- garlic clove – 1 pc.;
- chicken eggs – 110 g.
It is permissible to replace chicken eggs with quail eggs. In this case, you will need 6 pcs. You can use lettuce as a leaf salad. Dijon mustard can be replaced with any sweet or mild sauce. This will not change the taste.
Step-by-step cooking process
A detailed description of the process of creating a dish at home:
- Place anchovies with mustard, capers and garlic cloves in a mortar. The contents of the dressing must be thoroughly ground to a paste.
- To the ingredients in the mortar you need to add wine vinegar, chopped parsley and olive oil.
- Young potatoes need to be boiled in their skins and cut into quarters.
- Blanch green beans in boiling water for 2 minutes.
- The eggs will need to be boiled on low heat for 7 minutes.
- Lettuce leaves need to be washed, dried and torn into large pieces by hand.
- Place lettuce leaves in a circle on a plate greased with dressing, and add beans and potatoes on top.
- Then you will need to add canned tuna, chopped into small pieces, into the container.
- Eggs need to be cut into 3 parts, and cherry tomatoes into 2 parts. Afterwards they need to be added to the salad and mixed thoroughly.
Olives should be placed on top, seasoning the finished dish with the remaining sauce.
Rules for serving dishes, decoration
After dressing, the cold appetizer must be served immediately. Potatoes, spaghetti or rice are suitable as a side dish.
Light Niçoise salad with mustard dressing
A simple and easy version of French salad with a minimum of ingredients.
Ingredients:
- Arugula – 100 g
- Lemon juice - 1 tbsp.
- Cherry - 5 pcs.
- Potatoes - 1 pc.
- Mustard - 1 tbsp.
- Egg - 1 pc.
- Olive oil - 2 tbsp.
- Canned tuna – 100 g
Preparation:
Boil the potatoes. Peel the root vegetable and chop into cubes.
Boil the egg and chop into thin slices.
Chop the arugula with your hands.
Mix lemon juice with oil and mustard.
Chop the tomatoes in halves.
Place all the ingredients of the dish on a bed of arugula. Drizzle with lemon mustard sauce and serve.
Useful tips and tricks
In order to properly and tasty prepare a salad called “Niçoise” at home, it is recommended to follow useful tips regarding preparing the dish:
- For an appetizer, it is advisable to take fresh tuna rather than canned one, since it is much juicier. At the same time, canned fish contains a large amount of broth and oil.
- Anchovies can be replaced with herring fillet, lightly salted anchovy or salted sprat. The taste won't change much.
- There is no need to prepare the dish ahead of time or in large quantities. Otherwise, the fish will dry out, the tomatoes and eggs will become weathered, and the greens will wither.
- To serve beautifully on top, the delicacy can be decorated with eggs cut into the shape of a lily. You can also place halves of quail eggs on top of the salad.
- Regular tomatoes can be replaced with cherry tomatoes. They are more tasty and have a rich aroma.
- If the composition includes quail eggs, then it is better to use regular tomatoes so that the salad does not contain many small ingredients.
- In addition to lettuce, you can use arugula, Beijing, Savoy or red cabbage.
- When serving delicacies to the holiday table, it is recommended to place the dish in individual salad bowls.
Niçoise salad with fresh or canned tuna is a universal dish that can be prepared both on weekdays and on holidays. For a variety of taste and aroma qualities, the classic snack recipe can be supplemented with vegetables, beans, arugula, poached eggs, and anchovies.
What is Niçoise and what is its classic recipe?
And its history goes back several centuries. They say that in the 18th century fishermen invented the appetizer, introducing wine vinegar, anchovies (tuna was already added in the mid-19th century), olives, and olive oil as mandatory ingredients. Over time, the dish began to spread throughout the Old and New Worlds; it was prepared in respectable restaurants, introducing many national characteristics into the traditional recipe. In any case, the salad has become a real hallmark of Nice. Disputes about the traditional cooking recipe continue today. Connoisseurs laugh at the fact that the classic salad could originally have included potatoes, tomatoes and eggs - they say, where do fishermen get these products from? In her book “Cuisine of the County of Nice,” the mayor of the city of the same name put an end to the dispute between restaurateurs by publishing the national recipe for Niçoise. It consisted of anchovies, onions, sweet peppers, artichokes, but without - attention! - eggs, potatoes, tuna and even without its zest, Dijon mustard. Since then, culinary experts have divided into several camps and identified three main versions of the salad, which are considered classic.
Nicoise Small is the most simplified version. Consists of lettuce, sweet peppers, sweet onions, boiled eggs, tomatoes, anchovies and olives. Season with vegetable oil and regular or wine vinegar. Even better - lemon juice.
Niçoise Regular – this uses canned tuna and green beans. The sauce is more complicated - butter with lemon juice is complicated by mustard or finely chopped garlic.
Grand - Nicoise. In this version, the tuna is not canned, but lightly marinated and fried. There is not a lot of potatoes - it should soften the spicy taste, but not interrupt it.
So that you too can taste a unique dish from the Cote d'Azur, we offer you step-by-step and with photos to try the version that is closest to the classic recipe (according to the previous classification - “regular”).
"Eating at home"
The Niçoise salad has several cooking options. Yulia Vysotskaya's recipe is simple and at the same time original. Let's get to know him.
Compound:
- 0.1 kg of lettuce leaves;
- 50 g arugula;
- 0.1 kg asparagus;
- 8 pcs. Cherry tomatoes;
- 6 pcs. quail eggs;
- 1 b. canned tuna;
- olives;
- onion;
- anchovies - 10 pcs.;
- purified olive oil – 5 tbsp. l.;
- vinegar (wine) - 1 tbsp. l.;
- mustard beans - 1 tbsp. l.;
- 1-2 cloves of garlic;
- salt;
- freshly ground pepper.
Preparation:
- Peel the onion, chop it into thin half rings and place it on a plate.
- Add vinegar, stir and leave the onion to marinate.
- Boil the asparagus by dipping it in boiling water for five minutes.
- Boil the quail eggs, cool and peel. Let's cut them into four parts.
- Wash the tomatoes and cut them into pieces or four pieces.
- Mash the canned food thoroughly with a fork.
- Peel the anchovies. We only need fillet.
- Combine olive oil with vinegar and mustard beans and stir.
- Peel the garlic cloves and squeeze them through a press, add them to the dressing.
- Add salt and ground pepper.
- Whisk the dressing until it reaches the consistency of an emulsion.
- Wash and dry the lettuce leaves.
- Put them in a salad bowl.
- Next, distribute the canned food and onions. Pre-squeeze the vegetable from the marinade.
- We beautifully lay asparagus, arugula, quail eggs and anchovy fillets on top.
- The last ones to come into play are olives and tomatoes.
- Pour dressing over the salad. Ready!
Advice! The French appetizer “Nicoise” can be served as an independent dish. This salad will also harmoniously complement a potato or rice side dish.