Tuna Nicoise Salad. I confess I am a huge fan of salads in the summer months. I especially love main dish salads like this one, which is not only a feast for the eyes, but for the tummy as well.
Nicoise Salad or Salad Niçoise as it is also called is a French Salad. It is what is known as a composed salad, somewhat similar to a Cobb salad, with the main difference here being that there is no chicken involved and no bacon either!
This delicious salad comes from Nice, France, which is on the Mediterranean side of France. The side where the Riviera is. So think seafood and sunshine.
One thing which I like about it is that its a salad in which you can totally prepare all of the elements for it ahead of time. This makes it a perfect salad for entertaining as you need only whisk up a dressing and throw things together at the last minute!
The main ingredients for the salad are tuna (of course), boiled potatoes, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes, green beans and black olives.
In France they always use tinned tuna. I use tinned tuna, but you can certainly cook fresh tuna steaks in the place of the tinned tuna if you wish. Just make sure you don't overcook them or you run the risk of them tasting like chicken.
And trust me, if you have run to the expense of buying fresh tuna steaks to use in this delicious salad, you don't want it to taste like chicken. One minute per side is all you really need as far as cook time goes.
I always just use tinned tuna myself. I do use a solid albacore tuna however. I never buy any other kind. Its just my preference when it comes to tuna.
An Italian lady stopped me in the grocery store one day while I was buying tuna and told me that I should only ever buy albacore tuna. She said the rest was garbage.
Who am I to argue with experience! I was quite young at the time and she seemed to be quite old. In all truth she was probably younger then than I am now, but hey ho! She knew what she was talking about.
I have never bought anything but Albacore tuna since that day. I know it can seem to be a bit expensive, but at the end of the day, you always get what you pay for.
I like it in water or in oil. The one in oil is infinitely better, but because I am watching my cholesterol these days, I always settle for it in water.
This is a wonderful time of year to enjoy this salad. We are being spoiled right now with an abundance of fresh summer vegetables. Green beans, tomatoes, new potatoes, salad leaves.
Everything is so fresh and local and delicious! It doesn't get much better than this!
I love the wonderful earthy flavors of fresh new potatoes. You don't need to do anything special to them, just wash them really well and pop them into a saucepan of boiling lightly salted water.
10 to 15 minutes later, depending on the size of your potatoes, they are done to perfectly. I like them with the skins on myself. More fiber and that skin is so delicious.
Green beans are in season at the moment and our local ones are beautiful. So are the golden yellow wax beans. I have been feasting on them while I can!!
You want to pick beans for this salad that are not overly large in size. The smaller ones have the best flavor.
I have chosen today to use a mix of salad greens consisting of spinach and baby rocket/agugula. I love the iron earthiness of spinach and I just adore the peppery and meaty punch of rocket leaves!
I eat a lot of rocket, truth be told. I love it in sandwiches, on burgers and all sorts. Trust me when I say a roast beef sandwich with horseradish mayo and rocket leaves is a sandwich made in heaven!
I only ever buy free range eggs. If you are lucky enough to have a farm close by where you can buy free range eggs, so much the better.
Many people are greatly intimidated at the thought of hard boiling eggs. Its really not that hard and is a matter of timing. To hard boil eggs with a firm white and yolk start with room temperature eggs.
Pierce the large end of the egg with an egg piercer or a needle; this helps to prevent the egg from cracking in the heat of the water.
Place then into a saucepan and cover them completely in water. Bring to the boil and then reduce to a simmer and cook for 15 minutes, maximum.
At the end of that time, remove them from the heat and place them in cold water immediately. This will prevent them from over-cooking and developing that unsightly dark ring around the yolks.
They will still taste okay, should the dark ring develop, but they are not as attractive to look at and in this salad, that's quite important.
Black olives are also an important part of this salad. You should use Nicoise olives if you can find them. I can't find those here so I have used Kalamata olives, which are a wonderful substitution.
The final salad ingredient is ripe garden tomatoes. They are starting to come into their own now. Just an ordinary tomato will do . . . fresh from the vine with the warmth of the summer sun still on its skin.
That's what you want, and what is ideal. Failing that, just get the best your money can buy and leave them at room temperature to ripen for a few days. You won't be sorry!
There are a few other things you can add if you want to. Capers is one. I adore capers. Vinegary, salty, they go so very well here.
Some thinly sliced red onion also works well. I have gone for simplicity here however, so I did not include either of those two things.
The final element of course is the dressing and I say keep it simple. I have chosen to use a simple vinaigrette dressing without any bells and whistles. With all of that fresh produce, why run the risk of overwhelming them with a dressing which is overly flavored.
Simple. Simple. Simple. Oil, vinegar and seasoning. That's all you need. Let the beauty of your fresh ingredients speak for themselves. Let them sing. A good dressing will only enhance their flavors, not overwhelm them. This simple dressing does just that.
Enjoy!
Tuna Nicoise Salad
Yield: 2
A beautiful main dish salad for those days when you just can't be asked to cook. It makes a great use of the abundant produce available to us this time of year as well.
Ingredients
For the dressing:
- 2 TBS white wine vinegar
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1/4 tsp freshly ground black pepper
- 1/2 cup (120ml) olive oil
- 1/4 tsp ground paprika
For the salad:
- 2 large free range eggs, hardboiled. peeled and quartered
- 4 new potatoes, scrubbed, cooked and quartered
- 12 French beans, washed, trimmed and cooked until crispy tender
- 2 heaped cups (120g) mixed salad leaves
- 2 tomatoes, washed and quartered
- 12 kalamata olives
- 1 (6 1/2 -ounce/170g) solid albacore tuna, drained
Instructions
- Mix the vinegar and the salt together for the dressing in a small bowl. Leave to stand for a few minutes. Add the pepper and then slowly whisk in the olive oil until the mixture emulsifies. Whisk in the paprika. Taste and adjust seasoning as required. Set aside.
- Put the eggs and potatoes into a mixing bowl. Toss with a little bit of the dressing.
- Divide the salad leaves between two chilled plates. Top with the eggs and potatoes. Add the tomatoes and green beans. Place all of this around the edges. Divide the tuna in half and place half in the center of each plate. Scatter the olives over top.
- Drizzle the remaining dressing over everything and serve immediately.
Notes:
You can use two fresh tuna steaks in the place of the tinned tuna. Put a small amount of oil in a skillet and heat over high heat. Season the tuna steaks and sear them in the hot oil, cooking them for no longer than 1 minute per side. Place one onto each plate of salad and serve.
Ginger-Cream Bars. I think I am in love. Totally, fully, and completely in love. So much so, that the first three bars of this that I cut . . . somehow disappeared. I am not confessing anything here.
But seeing as how I live totally by myself, there is nobody else to blame. I did it. I ate them. I am a really naughty puppy.
What you are looking at here is a cake type of bar very reminiscent of a ginger bread. Moist and filled with spice and molasses,
With plenty of cinnamon and ginger and cloves. But that's not where the pleasure ends.
Top that moist, dark and delicious cake with a lush creamy icing. A cream cheese icing. Rich and indulgent.
But the pleasure doesn't end there. Nope. There is more deliciousness to be found.
The next bit is purely optional of course. But . . . I have chosen to top that lush cream cheese frosting with little bits of candied ginger root and toasted walnuts . . .
Yep, scattered all over the top. Of course they could be let out completely, but why . . . if you have them to use . . . why not use them!
The original recipe comes from a cookbook by Taste of Home called Grandmother's Favorite Recipes, and is attributed to a gal named Carol Nagelkirk from Holland Michigan.
The photograph in the book looked so tasty, I was instantly wanting to bake these. But, and this is a big but (also butt) when you live on your own. It said it made 5 dozen bars. 5 DOZEN BARS!
I really wanted to bake these but I wasn't wanting that many bars hanging around my house. I did what I always do. I cut the recipe in half.
It worked out really well, but I have to say that I think the idea that it makes 5 dozen bars to be a bit of a stretch.
The full recipe was supposed to bake in a 10 by 13 by 1 inch pan. Must be really small bars if you can get 60 bars out of that!
Ummm . . . I don't think so. There is far too much batter for a pan that size methinks anyways. Maybe a pan twice that size.
I have a sheet pan that is half that size and when I halved the recipe, it was clear to me that that pan wasn't going to be deep enough and so I baked it in an 8-inch square pan. There is no way the full recipe would bake in a 10 by 13 pan with 1-inch sides. That has to be a misprint.
Never mind, it worked well half sized in my 8-inch square pan, but there is no way you would get 2 1/2 dozen bars from it. At best you would get a dozen.
I would also say that it is not a bar like a cookie bar, but more like a cake. Even the photograph in the book likes like a cake rather than a cookie. Who cares a rose by any other name.
I did cut the amount of cloves called for in the recipe way way back. Half the amount called for in the recipe would be 1/2 tablespoon. I cannot imagine 1/2 tablespoon of cloves in this.
I can't imagine a full tablespoon of ground cloves in the full sized recipe either. It would be inedible in my opinion.
Even cutting it back to 1/2 teaspoon for this sized pan I had my doubts. Having tasted them I would say without a doubt any more than that and it would be cloves overkill.
You would have to be madly passionate about cloves as in that quantity, they would kill every other flavor in the cake. 1/2 teaspoon is close to being too much. Just this side of too much.
One thing which really intrigued me however was the use of hot coffee in the batter. Yep, hot coffee. Although I don't drink tea or coffee for religious reasons, I do keep a jar of coffee in my cupboard for visitors, who do drink it.
I am not at all opposed to cooking with it. I quite like the flavor of coffee in baked goods, and the Coffee Crisp is one of my favorite chocolate bars. When I lived in the UK my sister and middle son would periodically send me over some bite sized ones.
And I confess, I quite like the green wrapped coffee chocolates in the Cadbury's Roses tin at Christmas. Sigh . . . I will miss Cadbury's Roses . . .
You cannot taste the coffee in this cake. There is no flavor of it. It is probably spiced out by all of the cinnamon, ginger and cloves.
Having said that, you could probably get away with just using hot water or even hot tea. But again, I think the idea of hot is just to get the soda working, so water would work well.
And I don't mean to sound like I am tearing the recipe apart, I really don't. I am in love with these bars right! They are totally delicious.
I am only trying to advise you on changes you should make for success. Changes that I made. Changes that work well. Don't worry I wrote the recipe with the changes.
They work so well that I inhaled three pieces as soon as I cut into it. That speaks for itself, or should do.
I do love ginger flavored anything though. I am a card carrying ginger-holic.
I adore Gin Gins. Have you ever had them? They are little hard candies that are super gingery. Great for when you have an upset stomach.
I used to get them in the UK and thought I would never find them here in Nova Scotia, but wonder of all wonders! I did find a bag last week when I was in Winners! Yay!
I scooped it up. Needless to say I will be rationing them. My friend Jacquie brought me two little bags of Chimes Ginger Chews the other day. Cue in floating hearts. Yes, I am a ginger fanatic!
Which reminds me I promised my dad I would bake him some molasses cookies a few weeks ago and I haven't gotten around to it yet. Must put that on my "to do" list for very soon.
Can you see the beautiful cake-like texture of these bars? I hope so. Incredibly moist and delicious.
That frosting is its crowning glory. It cuts the spiciness down a notch with a creamy finish. There is a perfect balance of spice and cool creaminess here.
So you get a nice burst of spice in the bars, but tempered with that lush, rich cream cheese frosting. The two work together beautifully I have to say.
It was suggested you top these with some chopped walnuts. As I always say, toast your nuts, but why not add a bit more ginger-spice with some chopped candied ginger?
Why not indeed! Worked really well with the chopped toasted nuts and made for the perfect finish. Oh . . . and that mug? My mom loved Ginger also, especially Ginger cats. I had given her this mug one year for her Birthday. My sister gifted it back to me.
I thought to myself, ginger bread bars, a ginger cat mug. The perfect combination! I am so excited. I will soon have a ginger cat all of my own. I can't wait!
(On a side note, I do apologise for the haphazardness of this post. It has taken me three hours to get things the pictures etc. to work today. Very frustrating, but I got there in the end! Some days are just like that!)
Yield: one dozen cake type bars
Ginger-Cream Bars (small batch)
Prep time: 10 MinCook time: 35 MinTotal time: 45 Min
This is an old time favorite, down-sized from its original to make 12 perfect bars. Spicy, moist, gingery delicious and topped with a lush cream cheese frosting. Perfect with a hot cuppa.
Ingredients
For the cake part:
- 1/2 cup (60g) butter, at room temperature
- 1/2 cup (95g) granulated sugar
- 1 cup (140g) plain all-purpose flour
- 1/2 tsp salt
- 1 tsp baking soda
- 2 tsp ground cinnamon
- 2 tsp ground ginger
- 1/2 tsp ground cloves
- 1 large free range egg, at room temperature
- 1/4 cup (60ml) molasses
- 1/2 cup (120ml) hot coffee
For the frosting:
- 1/4 cup (60g) butter, at room temperature
- 1 1/2 ounces full fat cream cheese, at room temperature
- 1 cup (130g) icing sugar
- 1 tsp vanilla
- chopped candied ginger and toasted walnuts to garnish
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 350*F/180*C/gas mark 4. Butter an 8-inch square baking tin and line with baking paper. Set aside.
- Cream the butter and sugar together until light and fluffy. Whisk together the flour, soda, spices and salt. Add to the creamed mixture and then beat in the egg. Beat in the molasses and the whisk in the hot coffee. Pour the batter into the prepared pan.
- Bake in the preheated oven for 30 to 35 minutes, until risen and the top springs back when lightly touched. Leave to cool in the pan for 5 minutes, then lift out to a wire rack to finish cooling completely.
- To make the frosting, cream the butter and cream cheese together to combine and then beat in the sugar and the vanilla until thick, creamy and smooth. Spread over the cooled cake.
- Sprinkle with chopped nuts and candied ginger and cut into bars to serve.
This content (written and photography) is the sole property of The English Kitchen. Any reposting or misuse is not permitted. If you are reading this elsewhere, please know that it is stolen content and you may report it to me at: mariealicejoan at aol dot com
I learned to love two things over the 20 + years that I spent in the UK. One of them was lamb, and the other was the cooking of Nigel Slater.
Lamb was not something I had ever really had when I was growing up. My mother did buy lamb chops once, but they smelled like burning mittens when she was cooking them so nobody would eat them.
It was probably not good lamb. I only came to love and appreciate lamb after moving over to the UK. Our wedding supper was held at a restaurant and we were allowed to pick whatever we wanted from the menu.
I decided to be brave and picked Saddle of Lamb. It was delicious. I fell in love at first bite and have been cooking lamb ever since. They had beautiful lamb in the UK.
I know you are all familiar with what lamb is, but you may not be so familiar with who Nigel Slater is. Nigel Slater is a cook who writes. He is not a classically trained Chef, but he is every bit as popular as any celebrity chef.
He's been writing a food column for the Observer every weekend for 27 years, and is the author of multiple cookbooks. He has also had several very popular series on the television, and a movie made about him called simply "Toast."
He is a man who loves to cook and who loves to eat and who loves to write about it. He cooks the way I love to cook and to eat. Its that simple.
I have a few of his cookery books. Not as many as I used to have because I am having to replace the ones I left behind, but I am starting off with his best (in my honest opinion), The Kitchen Diaries. There are three volumes and they are exactly what the title says. Kitchen Diaries.
Taken from Diaries he kept throughout the year of his adventures in the garden, kitchen, etc. Recipe journal, kitchen chronical. I find them fascinating and filled with loads of inspiration and great recipes.
What I love most about his recipes is that they are great jumping off points for doing my own thing. I have replaced all three of the kitchen diaries (one at a time) and have just gifted myself with the two Volumes of Tender (again one at a time.)
The recipe which inspired what I am sharing with you today comes from the first volume of The Kitchen Diaries, which is something which he cooked on the 7th of May. I am cooking it a tiny bit later in the year.
When my sister and I were at the Super Store the other day I spied some lamb chops. I have not had lamb since I arrived back in Canada last November and I was so tempted by them that I picked up a small package.
They were a bit pricey at over $8 for three chops, but sometimes you just have to fill your yearnings for what you love and enjoy, especially food wise. I have only me to please now, so why not
They were nice thick chops as well, with abundant tenderloin bits on the sides. Loin chips are like the T-bones of the lamb kingdom, with a nice little chunk of meat on one side of the T-bone and a little nugget of tender lamb on the other. (No surprise that is my favorite part!)
Of course I wanted to cook them perfectly. I didn't want to be wasting these prime cuts of meat. I looked to Nigel for inspiration and found this recipe, amongst a few others.
This felt and read like what I wanted to cook today and I happened to have some new potatoes in my cupboard. I did improvise on the recipe quite a bit, but most good cooks do.
He starts off by boiling some new potatoes in a pan of lightly salted water. I did that as well. His chops were simply seasoned with salt and black pepper.
Freshly ground sea salt and black pepper to be exact.
He heated some olive oil in a heavy based skillet along with the finely grated zest of one fresh lemon and some fresh mint. I did not have fresh mint, so used dried and it worked fine.
I took the liberty of adding two fat cloves of garlic that I peeled, bashed and split open. These helped to flavor the oil that the chops were going to be fried in.
Simply fried, just until golden brown, seared really so that the lamb inside stays nice and pink and tender. But the juices of the lamb mingle with the olive oil, mint, lemon and garlic to make a lush pan juice.
He had merely crushed the potatoes into the pan juices at the end. I decided that I would fry them in the pan juices and brown them off a bit, before adding the lemon juice at the end.
The potatoes are boiled until tender. I lightly crushed them before adding them to the pan. Cracked them more or less, that way there were lots of craggy bits to brown and get a bit crisp. (I removed the lamb to a plate, keeping it warm and tented.)
That afforded me the time to really get the potatoes a bit crispy. And then I added the lamb back to the pan and squeezed over the lemon juice.
Leaving the skin on the potatoes and cracking them open rather than slicing or mashing them, gave them added interest I thought.
Well, the picture speaks for itself. Nothing there but the pan juices and golden crispy edged potatoes, lightly flavored with the lemon at the end.
And then I threw them into the pan with the potatoes and the lamb, coating them with some of those lush pan juices as well.
This was a beautiful combination. Tender moist pieces of lamb . . . crispy tender potatoes . . . lemon, mint and garlic pan juices.
Crispy tender beans . . .
You can see how perfectly cooked the lamb was. Just pink. Succulent. Delicious.
This combination made for a really wonderful dinner for myself. Cooking for one or two doesn't have to be boring. In fact if it is, then you're doing something wrong! (Now you know why I look the way I do.)
Many thanks to Nigel for the delicious inspiration!!
Lamb with Lemon, Mint & Potatoes
Yield: 2
Prep time: 5 MinCook time: 25 MinTotal time: 30 Min
I wanted to take advantage of the flavors of the new potatoes that are showing up in the shops and paired them with some tender lamb chops. Inspired by Nigel Slater.
Ingredients
- 1/2 pound smallish new potatoes
- 4 lamb loin chops
- one medium fresh lemon, zest and juice
- 1/2 tsp dried mint
- two fat cloves of garlic, peeled and mashed
- fine sea salt and freshly ground black pepper
- light olive oil
Instructions
- Bring a pot of salted water to the boil. Add the potatoes and bring back to the boil. Cook for 10 to 15 minutes until they test tender when prodded with the sharp end of a knife.
- While they are cooking, heat the olive oil, mint, mashed garlic cloves and lemon zest in a large heavy bottomed skillet. Add some seasoning.
- Season the lamb chops all over with some salt and pepper.
- Once the oil begins to sizzle, add the lamb chops. Cook for two minutes on one side until it begins to color, then flip over and cook the other side, again until brown. Remove from the heat and tent with some foil.
- Scoop out your cooked potatoes into the pan with the oil, mint, garlic, etc. Mash lightly with a fork. Allow them to brown before flipping them over to brown lightly on the underside. Add the chops back to the pan. Squeeze the juice of the lemon over top and heat everything through.
- Serve two chops each, along with some of the browned potatoes and pan juices.
- I like to eat mine with some mint sauce or jelly.
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