Amazing Nicoise (or greens plus plus)

Recipes: Salade Nicoise, Marinated new potatoes, Calamari steak

Whether you're in the frozen East or Midwest, or here in unnaturally warm and dry California, or in Russia or Malaysia as some of our readers are, this is a year when everyone wants to eat well and healthy in order to feel good. Add to that the instinctive need to "lighten up" after the holidays and a big salad that satisfies your every food desire is just the ticket. A Salade Nicoise comes to mind immediately.

Nicoise refers to a dish that's made like someone in Nice, France would make it, in their kitchen at home as opposed to in a restaurant. Of course Salade Nicoise is served in restaurants, both here and there, but first and foremost it reflects the way people who live in Nice like to eat using ingredients that are fresh and readily available. Here's a single-serving Nicoise I ate with pleasure in a good French bistro in San Francisco earlier this week:

Nice is located on the Mediterranean Sea, on the southeast coast of France. It's a beautiful place to visit, with mild Mediterranean weather. Naturally, fish and vegetables are a major part of the food cooked and eaten in this seaside city.

Salade Nicoise is most often served with tuna, as we will show in the first recipe, but it is also possible to be creative, as we will show in the variations.

Salade Nicoise

This is so easy, it's hard to believe it will be any good. Much of it comes from bottles and cans, and yet the combination is exciting and satifying. It's also easy to make on short notice.

• A mix of lettuces, 4 cups for the two of you. Butter lettuce is nice, mixed perhaps with frisee and arugula, or with a bit of torn radicchio. Wash and dry the lettuces very well, and tear the larger leaves into pieces.
• A 1/2 pound piece of fresh tuna, about 1 inch thick.
• 1 cup olive oil
• 1/4 cup tarragon vinegar, or rice vinegar plus 1/2 teaspoon dried tarragon
• Freshly squeezed juice from 1 lemon
• 2 cloves garlic, crushed
• 1/2 tablespoon dry mustard
• 1/2 teaspoon sugar
• 1/2 tablespoon sea salt
• Freshly ground black pepper
• 1 cup cooked cut green beans
• 1/2 cup jarred or canned artichoke hearts (marinated or not)
• 1 medium onion, thinly sliced
• 1/2 cup pitted black olives (kalamata, which are Greek not French, work well here)
• 3 hard-cooked eggs, quartered
• 1/2 cup bottled or canned red pepper strips
• 1 2-ounce can rolled anchovies with capers

Make the dressing. Combine mustard, sugar, salt, and a generous amount of pepper. Mix in garlic. Add vinegar and lemon juice and whisk or stir thoroughly. Add oil and mix well. Stir or shake vigorously (in a covered jar) just before using.

Combine the beans and onion with the garlic dressing and marinate for an hour or so. If the artichoke hearts are not marinated, include them.

Salt and pepper the tuna. In a small saute pan, heat a tablespoon of olive oil and sear the tuna over medium high heat one minute on each side for rare. Fresh tuna is best rare. If you must, sear a bare half minute more on each side to cook it medium. Tuna that is over-cooked becomes dry.

To serve, line a salad bowl or a large platter with greens. Or you can divide everything between two dinner plates, if you prefer. Drain the marinated vegetables, keeping the dressing to use later, and spoon them onto the greens. Arrange the olives, eggs, peppers, and anchovies (and artichoke hearts if they are not in with the other vegetables) in a pretty pattern on top of the greens.

Cut the tuna in half or in strips and arrange it on top of the salad. Sprinkle all lightly with the garlic dressing just before you serve it, or pass the dressing at the table.

Note: Tomato wedges are usually a part of Salade Nicoise, but tomatoes are not in season at the moment. In the summer and fall, be sure to include them.

The Payoff:

Lettuce strengthens your immune system and helps with good vision (Vit. A).
Garlic helps regulate cholesterol and fights the common cold. (Besides keeping evil spirits away, according to folk wisdom!)
Fresh tuna promotes normal metabolism and youthfulness as a good source of omega-3 fatty acid.

Variations:
Substituting calamari steak for the tuna makes an excellent salad, although it is not traditionally Nicoise. It is delicious, however. Buy one large or medium calamari steak (a good butcher will often have it frozen, which is fine). Salt and pepper it and cook it just as the recipe indicates for tuna, except that you can use a tablespoon of butter instead of oil. In this case, one minute on each side is the maximum you should cook it. Calamari cooked this way is not really "rare" in the sense that it's pink, and if it is cooked any longer it will become rubbery. Cut the calamari steak into strips before placing it on the salad.

The salade can be made vegetarian by eliminating the tuna and the anchovies, and by adding  steamed potatoes to the other vegetables for marinating in the garlic dressing. I often add small new red potatoes, a strip of peel cut away around the center, steamed until tender, and marinated this way, to the original Salade Nicoise recipe. In addition, small new red potatoes, steamed and marinated by themselves in the garlic dressing, are delightful on their own and make a great picnic dish.

The entire dish, including its variations, is gluten-free unless you serve it with bread.