Where does Niçoise salad come from?
The Niçoise salad, also called Salade Nióise or Insalata Nizzarda, is a type of salad worldwide
known that comes from the Cote D’Azur area, France. But the very origin of this salad is in
Nice.
This salad or “Salade” is served in a flat plate and is made with the combination of diverse
elements lying in a vegetables bed.
There is a big discussion around the ingredients of this dish, among all of them, the use of the
lettuce is widely debated, and it use vary depending on the area you order it.
Usually, the vegetables, like the tomato, red peppers, onions or lettuce, are prepared
individually and then other ingredients join them, this ingredients also vary depending on the
region.
What is the origin of Niçoise salad?
This recipe started to be popular in the Montpelier area, around the year 1880. Originally, this
recipe didn’t include red peppers or onion and it was made with artichoke hearts.
The legend says that the famous choreographer Balanchine could have influenced the creation of this dish during his stay in Monte Carlo, others say that it is a dish from Provence area, though.
This salad has become also famous in North America, because of the chef Julia Child.
Ingredients:
40 g of rounded green beans.
½ red pepper.
½ green pepper.
2 tomatoes.
2 lettuce hearts.
½ cucumber.
12 black olives.
2 eggs.
6 anchovies.
75 g of tinned tuna.
White pepper.
1 spoon of mustard seeds.
Vinegar.
Extra virgin olive oil.
Water.
Ice cubes.
Salt.
Time of preparation: 20 min.
How to cook Niçoise salad:
First step: Ingredients preparation.
Take a pot and put the water, the vinegar and the eggs inside. Put the pot on the fire, with high heat and, when it starts boiling, low the heat and let it cooking for 10 minutes. After that time, remove the water and let the eggs low their temperature.
At the same time, take another pot, put water and put on the fire until it is boiling, when this
happens, put salt, white pepper and put the green beans inside. Cook them until they are soft.
When they are cooked, in order to cold them down and increase the green colour, take a bowl and put ice and water inside, put also the beans inside to make them cold down fast.
Meanwhile everything is being cooked, wash the vegetables and cut them, the peppers in
bands, the tomatoes in sheets, the cucumber dices and strip the leaves of the lettuce.
Take the eggs, peel them and cut them into sheets.
Top Tip: you can peel and cut the eggs into sheets to let them cold down faster. You can also low down the temperature of the eggs using the water and the ices of the beans, but in this case, the eggs should already have the shell (if you use this method, put the eggs after taking the beans out to avoid salmonellosis).
Second Step: Vinaigrette.
Take a small bowl, and put vinegar, salt, some white pepper and the mustard. Mix everything
very well and start pouring with a stream of oil little by little while stirring with the bars at the
same time, don’t stop stirring until we have a soft mayonnaise, at that time is when our
vinaigrette is ready.
Top Tip: we don’t want neither to cut the vinaigrette, nor to have an oily salad, so pour the oil in little streams and don’t add the next stream until you have the perfect texture with the one before.
Final Step.
