Putting it all together..

This is crap!!! *&^%$# I work till very late yesterday putting together the recipe for the salad and to my suprise it was not saved. I could have sworn that it was saved. But I just found a blank page. :(
 So my apologies to those who were counting on the recipe in English and Spanish but I'm sorry, google has a translator.


We talked about the things needed to bild the salad per yesterday's post.
Hard Boiled Eggs.
A trick shown to me was to place the eggs first in the pan, then fill it with water add tons of salt and a bit of white vinegar. Cook for about 7 to 8 minutes depending how many eggs and how done you like them. I Like my eggs with a bright colored yolk, not to hard so the yolk is not dry and with a sandy texture.

Crisp Green Beans,
but if you like them soggy and dark green, then go on with your bad self. I hate dark and soggy veggies, specially if they are green, really gross.
You can steam or boiled the beans. If you choose to boiled them be careful and be quick. Like the nursery rhyme, Jack be nibble, jack be quick. Boil water with salt, add the green beans once they been cleaned and trimmed.  If you have about two hand fulls of beans then give or take 6 minutes, if you are not sure if hey are done. Take one and if the fork pokes through evenly, you are good to go.

Sliced Cucumbers.
I don't think I have to tell you how to slice a cuke, but I will recommend to use an English cucumber. Why? It's sweeter and had a thinner skin and easier to digest.

Tomatoes.
You can use Roma tomatoes, or cherry tomatoes. If you use the Roma variety, they can be quarted length wise.

Potatoes.
Most cooks just boiled the potatoes for the salad. I wanted to go the extra mile when I made mine this last time and I roasted the potatoes. You can get really fancy and add all kinds of herbs and spices or just simply add salt pepper and olive oil. Bake for about 40 minutes at 350. The potatoes that work best are small red potatoes, or you can use new potatoes.

Tuna/Salmon/Anchovies/
White Albacore canned tuna can be used, or you can sear a tuna steak. I chose to use Salmon. In a small ball add a lot of minced garlic, grated lime or lemon rind, , salt  and pepper to taste mix and rub over the salmon then drizzle the juice of the fruited you grated. Bake at 350 till it's tender and to add a cripy leyer to the fish, place under the broiler for about 5 minutes. Let  it cool off. If anything you really want the fish at room temperature. The Anchovies, you can add them at your own risk. (GROSS)

Boston Lettuce or Butter Lettuce/Spring Greens.
With the Spring Greens, nothing much needs to be done, other than wash them and dry then. The Boston Lettuce are to be washed and then tear into bite size pieced and  place on he serving platter, bowl.

The Dressing.
This gets a bit tricky because there purist that insist on using herbs de provence for the dressing. Yes, I will admit this makes a mighty tasty dressing. But if you don't have them well you must improvise. So, I tend to have on hand fresh thyme, oregano and sometimes rosemary. Chop the previously mentioned, mince about four cloves of garlic, juice about three to four lemons, and if you like you can add a few springs of cilantro, give that new world kind of flavor. Dijon mustard as an emulsifier and good quality olive oil. Yes the dark kind, the kind that it hurts your pocket to pay that kind of money for but it's well worth it. :D Salt and peper to taste  Whisk everything together or if you can add all the ingredients together and put in a blender. This will keep for more than a week if you want it to last longer you can keep in a glass container.

Olives.
I almost forgot the olives, and that is because I don't like olives unless they are in salvadorean tamales or in pealla. Nice olives are what the recipe calls for but a good substitute is the Kalamata olives. I prefer sans olives.


So not all of that to just  place the greens or lettuce on the platter, place the fish in the center of the platter, and arrange the veggies around the fish.  then drizzle the dressing over the salad.
Here is a visiual aid to see  the the saladad looks like once assembled.

And this was the lovely Nicoise Salad. I hope that you get to make it, enjoy and in some cases expand your culinary horizon.

Sometime in the coming month  I will bring other culinary delights to the  blog. There are some ideas being thrown around. I am also open for serious suggestions. But let me save some time and effort, don't ask how to boil water, how to crack an egg, how to make instant soup.  I will blatantly ignored. :)


En el proximo mes traere otras delicias culinarias. Hay algunas ideas rondando por ahi, pero tambien estoy dispuesta a escuchar sugerencias serias.  Pero permitame que les ahorre tiempo y esfuerzo, no me pregunten como hervir agua, como quebrar un huevo, como hacer sopa instantena, que seran friamente ignorandos.