Bid adieu to Summer with Rich Rosés

We getting away from summer weather but here's a classic food pairing for rosé. Its not as complicated as it seems!

Classic Salade Niçoise

Serves 6
½ pound green beans, blanched, refreshed and halved
(haricots verts - thin French green beans are best)
1 pound red new potatoes, peeled, cooked, and cut into 1/8-inch slices
1 small red onion, cut into thin rings and soaked in cold water for 5 minutes
two 6-ounce cans imported tuna (packed in olive oil) flaked into large chunks
¼ pound niçoise olives (pitted and halved if you have the time and patience)
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 teaspoons minced shallot
12 anchovies, soaked in water for 5 minutes and finely chopped
3 tablespoons fresh lemon juice
¼ cup red-wine vinegar
1 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
½ teaspoon salt
½ teaspoon black pepper

1 head red-leaf lettuce, leaves torn roughly (or other leaf lettuce)
6 hard-boiled eggs, quartered lengthwise
4 small tomatoes, quartered

1. Combine beans, potatoes, red onion, tuna, and olives in a large bowl and toss gently to combine, so as not to break up the tuna chunks. Cover and refrigerate for 4 hours.
2. Place garlic, shallot, anchovies, lemon juice, and vinegar in a small bowl and whisk in olive oil. Season with salt and pepper.
3. Lightly dress lettuce with vinaigrette and divide among 6 plates. Decoratively arrange hard-boiled egg slices and tomatoes on lettuce, and drizzle with a little vinaigrette.
4. Dress vegetable and tuna mixture with remaining vinaigrette, tossing gently. Divide evenly among the plates.

Variation: for a fancier salad, try substituting grilled fresh tuna for canned.


*Taken from The Dean & DeLuca Cookbook, by David Rosengarten with Joel Dean and Giorgio DeLuca (Random House 1996)

Sep 07, 2009 at 4:16 PM

Nice recipe Greg. I especially like that you didn't froufrou it by using grilled tuna. Canned tuns, preferably from the Mediterranean, though more realistically from the Atlantic coast of Africa packed in good oil is the key to a good Salade Nicoise!

Thanks for sharing this.

Sep 08, 2009 at 5:46 PM