Nicoise Salad

I adore Nicoise salads.  I think mostly because of the haricot vert (green beans).  I love tuna too.  It's impossible to find good tuna canned in olive oil these days, at least where I shop.  I miss that.  Ahi tuna was available at IGA so I bought a piece of it and decided to sear it tonight.  I looked at a lot of different recipes, and in the end, just used the usual ingredients and made a vinaigrette.   I made the hard boiled eggs, green beans and dressing the night before.  For the dressing I used:

• 1/3 cup of apple cider vinegar
• 1/2 lemon, squeezed
• 1 shallot, minced
• few sprigs of thyme & oregano, stripped and chopped
• few stems of chives, chopped
• 1 heaping teaspoon of Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon of anchovy paste
• 3/4 cup Kirkland organic extra virgin olive oil

I shook this up in a jar and put it in the fridge.  I made my hard boiled eggs and cooked the green beans (cut in half) in salted boiling water for about 5 minutes.

Then I drained and ran under cold water.  The eggs and beans went into the fridge.  I also sliced about a quarter of red onion and put it in the fridge in a bowl of water and a dash of vinegar.  AND, I forgot to use them!

I marinated the tuna in some olive oil before I pan seared it in my cast iron pan.

For the rest of the salad I bought some Campari tomatoes, organic baby arugula (packaged), and red potatoes.  I still had the Thai basil in the fridge so tore some leaves up to garnish with.  I had no luck finding Nicoise olives so I used Kalamata.  I also garnished with some capers too.  I would have liked to mix this all up in a bowl as I wanted everything well dressed, but I like the presentation of Nicoise salads, like Cobb salads, so dressed each item separately and seasoned with S&P.

The green beans are buried under the tuna and egg.  I used the rest of the dressing on top of this after I took the picture.  This was tasty.  Everything was cooked perfectly, the tomatoes were ripe and all was seasoned well.  No complaints and that's what's for lunch tomorrow.