Nicoise recipe with tuna. Nicoise salad - a classic recipe with tuna

Nicoise salad is one of the most popular types of salads, the popularity of which is not inferior to the famous Caesar. The homeland of this dish is sunny, cheerful and rich Nice, Niçoise invites everyone to try the classic Mediterranean recipe and experience a real explosion of tastes. According to some evidence, the legendary choreographer George Balanchine took part in the creation of this salad, quite possibly with his thin and exquisite taste he owes it to him.

If there are salads with chicken or beef with fresh vegetables and crispy lettuce, the appearance of fish salad with fresh vegetables. The appearance of such a salad is more expected in sunny Italy, where seafood is found on the table several times more often than meat, but Nicoise appeared in Nice.

Today, probably, every restaurant has its own version of the Nicoise salad recipe. Tuna-based versions of this dish are often offered. But the original recipe in Nice still uses only anchovies, boiled eggs and fresh vegetables in a sauce of olive oil, lemon juice or wine vinegar. The classic recipe does not include rice, potatoes, or green beans.

Experimenting with the recipe for the classic Nicoise salad is not only in other countries where there are no such amazing anchovies in such abundance as in Nice, but also famous chefs, including those working in sunny Nice establishments. We can recommend trying the most popular versions of this famous salad and choosing the one you like best.

How to cook nicoise salad - 15 varieties

Let's get started original recipe salad for 4 servings. Nicoise, which is very close to the one that once appeared in sunny Nice.

Ingredients:

• lettuce - bunch
• small sweet tomatoes - 4 pcs.
• bulbs - 3 pcs.
• red bell pepper - 0.5 pcs.
• green beans- 200 g
• garlic - clove
• olives - 2 tbsp. l.
• chicken eggs - 3 pcs.
• anchovies in oil - 8 fillets
• Lemon juice - 3 tbsp

For sauce:

• olive oil - 7 tbsp. l.
• basil leaves - 8 pcs.
• White wine vinegar - 1.5 tablespoons
• garlic - 1 clove
• salt, black pepper

Cooking:

Prepare the sauce by grinding the ingredients and leave to infuse. Blanch the beans, rinse with cold water, put with a spoonful of olive oil and a clove of garlic in a thick frying pan and simmer over low heat. Sprinkle with parsley, hold for a minute and remove from heat until cool, then pour over lemon juice.

In a salad bowl, chopped vegetables are folded in layers: lettuce, onions, tomatoes, peppers and repeat, pepper and salt the layers. Boiled eggs, olives and anchovies are placed on top, poured with sauce.

Lettuce leaves should only be very fresh. To keep them crispy, they need to be refrigerated before cooking. If not good salad spinach will do. Some chefs in Nice immediately add anchovies to the sauce and then pour over the vegetable mixture.

Classic Nicoise is prepared only on the basis of anchovies and fresh vegetables. Connoisseurs say that in the old restaurants of Nice it is served in the second half of summer and autumn, when fish and vegetables are in abundance. This recipe includes green beans, as they are often added to vegetables. Tuna is also added to the salad, which gives a special taste. At the moment, this recipe is considered the best.

Ingredients:

• 2 tomatoes
• 2 eggs
• a few lettuce leaves
• green string beans - 120 g
• anchovies - 7 pieces
• olives - a handful
• olive oil - 7 tbsp. spoons
• light coloured balsamic vinegar- 1 tbsp. a spoon
• garlic - 1 clove;
• fresh basil - ¼ bunch
• salt and black pepper to taste

Cooking:

First, the sauce is prepared, for this they are mixed: crushed garlic, finely chopped basil, olive oil, vinegar, pepper and salt. The sauce is thoroughly whipped and left until the salad is prepared. Next, you need to blanch the beans, and then pour over with cold water. Boil the eggs and rinse the anchovies with cold water.

Crispy lettuce leaves are placed at the bottom of the dish, then chopped vegetables, a layer of olives, eggs and anchovies on top, pieces of tuna are laid out on top of the salad and the salad is poured abundantly with dressing with salt and pepper.

In France, Nicoise has long ceased to be a dish prepared according to a specific recipe, in many respects this style of cooking is already different dishes, which necessarily have tomatoes, green beans, garlic and seafood. Tuna can be not only canned, but also fried.

Ingredients:

• lettuce leaves - a small bunch
• tomatoes - 4 pcs.
• eggs - 2 pcs.
• string beans - a handful
• tuna steaks - 2 pcs.
• olives - a few pieces (optional)
• anchovies - a few pieces
• boiled potatoes - 2 pcs. (not necessary)

For sauce:

• olive oil - 50-80 g
• garlic - clove;
• salt - 2 pinches;
• sugar - a pinch;
• white balsamic vinegar - 2 tbsp. l.
• mustard - 2/3 tsp

Cooking:

Blanch the beans, boil a little, pour over with cold water. Fry the tuna steaks in oil and add a little salt. Beat the sauce with a blender, thanks to the mustard, there will be a stable thick consistency. Put in a dish on lettuce leaves, chopped potatoes, beans, tomatoes, sliced ​​eggs, sliced ​​tuna steak, anchovies, olives and pour over the sauce.

Tuna or sea beef steaks can be sprinkled with black and white sesame seeds, and fried so that the inside of the meat is soft pink.

Nicoise can be cooked according to the image Greek salad adding cheese to it. Cheese can be different, for example, mozzarella, blue cheese, feta cheese or the classic French parmesan.

Ingredients:

• canned tuna- 125 g
• potatoes - 2 pcs.
• chicken eggs - 2 pcs.
• green beans - 100 g
• lettuce mix - 250 g
• tomatoes (cherry or cream) - 4-6 pcs.
• parmesan - 50 g

For sauce:

• olive oil - 3 tbsp. l.
• mustard - 2 tbsp. l.
• lemon juice- 2 tbsp. l.
• sugar - a pinch

Cooking:

Boil eggs and vegetables, blanched green beans, fry a little on butter. Put the ingredients in a flat plate, mix lightly, pour over the pre-prepared sauce (beat all the ingredients with a blender) and sprinkle with parmesan.

The winter version of Nicoise salad includes boiled potatoes, which makes the salad more filling. Not only anchovies give an interesting taste, but also capers, which can be added to this recipe.

Ingredients:

• lettuce leaves (any) - a bunch
• green beans - 600 g
• large potatoes - 4 pcs.
• wine vinegar - 1 tbsp. l.
• cherry tomatoes - 600 g
• canned tuna - 1 can
• chicken eggs - 6 pcs
• olives - handful
• capers - 2 tbsp. l. (optional)
• anchovies - 6 pcs.

For sauce:

• olive oil - 0.5 tbsp.
• lemon juice - 2 tbsp. l.
• mustard - 2 tsp
• salt and black pepper to taste

Cooking:

For the sauce, mix the ingredients and beat with a mixer or whisk. cook raw foods grind everything. Put on a large tasting plate without stirring, serve the sauce in a gravy boat, as well as salt and pepper.

The taste will be richer if you use high quality extra virgin olive oil, as well as freshly ground sea ​​salt with a few peppercorns added.

There are many variations of this salad, but one of them is based on grilled tuna. The result is a beautiful-looking and delicious-tasting dish.

Ingredients:

• tuna - 40 g
• anchovies - 8 fillets
• half a bell pepper
• tomatoes - 3 pcs.
• olives - 20 pcs.
• iceberg lettuce and arugula - 150 g
• quail eggs - 12 pcs
• orange - 1 pc.
• For sauce:
• mustard - 2 tbsp. l.
• olive oil - 50 g
• black pepper and salt to taste
• white balsamic vinegar - 1 tbsp. l.

Cooking:

Put olives in a container, add chopped tomatoes, julienned peppers, sliced ​​anchovies, orange slices, boiled and cut eggs, a layer of lettuce. We cut the tuna into cubes or rectangles, season and fry on the grill. Prepare the sauce by mixing it with a whisk or a blender. We serve portioned plates.

This variant of Nicoise salad is Auriel Stern's signature recipe. The key difference is not using tuna, but smoked salmon.

Ingredients:

• salmon - 250 g
• potatoes - 6 pcs.
• iceberg lettuce - handful
• red onion
• Bell pepper
• cucumber
• quail eggs - 8 pcs.
• cherry tomatoes - 10 pcs.
• frozen green beans - 150 g
• basil leaves
• capers - 1 tbsp. l.
• salt and black pepper to taste

For sauce:

• apple cider vinegar - 1 tbsp. l.
• mustard - 1 tsp
• olive oil - 50 g

Cooking:

Put iceberg lettuce at the bottom of the dish, then peppers, tomatoes, onions, cucumbers, beans, olives, basil leaves, boiled potatoes, egg halves and a cooked smoked salmon steak. Drizzle with sauce.

You can fantasize about seafood, or you can try to add chicken fillet. The salad, of course, will resemble the famous Caesar, but the recipe deserves attention.

Ingredients:

• chicken fillet - 4 pcs.
• green beans (frozen) - 250 g
• olives (olives) - 50 g
• eggs - 4 pcs.
• cherry tomatoes - 150 g
• arugula - 70 g

For sauce:

• olive oil - 1/3 tbsp.
• lemon juice - 1 tbsp. l.
• mustard - 2 tsp
• garlic - 2 cloves

Cooking:

Make a four-ingredient sauce, whisk if necessary. Fry the chicken fillet. Put lettuce leaves, tomatoes, slightly boiled green beans, olives, eggs in a dish. If desired, you can add capers or anchovies. Pour dressing over.

The original Niçoise-themed white bean salad will be a great dish for a homemade dinner. It's delicious, filling and easy to make.

Ingredients:

• red onion - ½ pc.
• canned tuna - 1 jar
• canned white beans - 1 can
• cherry tomatoes - 4-5 pcs.
• fresh parsley- beam

For sauce:

• mustard - 1 tsp
• olive oil - 50 g
• lemon juice - 1 tbsp. l.

Cooking:

For the sauce, mix the ingredients in a bowl. Divide the tuna into fibers and put in a dish, add the washed white beans, onion half rings, tomatoes and chopped parsley. Drizzle with sauce.

This version of the salad features a more refined dressing by adding chicken yolk and tarragon. Gordon Ramsay is famous for his "emotional" dishes of his own authorship, this salad is no exception.

Ingredients:

• salmon - 400 g
• tomatoes - 200 g
• green beans - 200 g
• potatoes - 400 g
• chicken eggs - 4 pcs.
• butter - 10 g
• lettuce - ½ bunch
• basil - a few leaves
• olives - 100 g
• zest of a pollimon
• black pepper and salt to taste
• olive oil for frying

For sauce:

• olive oil - 1 tbsp.
• chicken yolk - 1 pc.
• mustard - 1 tsp
• vinegar - 1 tsp
• tarragon - twig
• fine salt - ½ tsp

Cooking:

Mix all the components of the sauce and beat with a whisk, boil potatoes and eggs, a little beans and vegetables. Fry beans after blanching in butter and add lemon zest. Fry the salmon olive oil, season with salt and pepper. Put the prepared products in a salad bowl, pour over the sauce.

Nicoise salad will be quite tasty even with an incomplete set of ingredients. The key base, of course, will be canned tuna.

Ingredients:

• canned salmon - 1 can
• tomatoes - 3 pcs.
• chicken eggs - 2 pcs.
• soy sauce
• mayonnaise - 1 pack.

Cooking:

Boil the eggs, separate the tuna into fibers, chop the eggs. Put tomatoes, eggs and tuna on lettuce leaves, pour a little mayonnaise over the layers and sprinkle tuna meat with soy sauce.

This recipe is a variation on the original Nicoise with fried salmon. The salad not only looks original, but also has a noble balanced taste.

Ingredients:

• salmon steak- 300 g
• chicken eggs - 2 pcs.
• basil leaves - 150 g
• fresh or pickled pear - 1 pc.
• olives and canned olives - a handful
• tomatoes - 3 pcs.
• red onion - ½ pc.
• pineapple pieces - 3-4 pcs.
• capers - optional
• olive oil - 100 g
• salt and black pepper to taste

For sauce:

• mustard - 1 tsp
• olive oil - 3 tbsp. l.
• balsamic vinegar - 1 tbsp. l.

Cooking:

Mix the sauce ingredients together and let it brew. Put vegetables and fruits on a serving plate, cover with basil leaves on top and sprinkle with olives and black olives. Fry the salmon steak in breaded oil, cool, cut into pieces and put on a serving plate.

This version of the salad makes for a well-balanced Nicoise a la Nicoise when no lettuce leaves are available. The recipe strongly resembles the classic Nicoise.

Ingredients:

• Chinese cabbage - 250 g
• tomatoes - 3 pcs.
• cucumber - 1 pc.
• tuna - 1 jar
• chicken eggs - 2 pcs.
• onion - ½ onion
• mustard - 1 tsp
• sunflower oil - 50-100 g

Cooking:

Cook and grind all the ingredients not finely, mix gently and pour over the sauce of mustard, vinegar and oil.

Salad a la Nicoise with Beijing cabbage is not made with tomatoes. You can add any vegetables or fruits to it, including dried or pickled ones. The original Nicoise contains dried olives, you can diversify the dish with sun-dried tomatoes.

Ingredients:

• Chinese cabbage - 250 g
• tuna - 1 jar
• chicken eggs - 2 pcs.
• onion - ½ onion
• olives - 7-10 pcs.
• mustard - 1 tsp
• balsamic vinegar - 1 tbsp.
• sunflower oil - 50-100 g
• crackers - 80-100 g

Cooking:

Boil eggs and cut. Chop Chinese cabbage. Divide the tuna into fibers. Mix all the ingredients, sprinkle with croutons and add the sauce of vinegar and sunflower oil.

This salad has only a few ingredients but is very pretty looking and nutritious. This is a great option for dinner. If necessary, you can add lettuce or Beijing cabbage.

Ingredients:

• eggs - 3 pcs.
• tuna - 1 jar
• onion - 1 pc.
• boiled rice - 200 g

Cooking:

Finely chop the onion, rub the eggs, divide the tuna into fibers, add rice and mix with mayonnaise. You can add if necessary chinese cabbage, basil leaves and lettuce, cut the eggs in half.

The birthplace of this salad is the French city of Nice, located on the shores of the warm Mediterranean Sea. The roots of the name Niçoise lie in the name of the city of Nice. According to the classic recipe for this Provencal traditional dish, it does not include boiled vegetables. Provencal cuisine is widely known in the world as one of the most useful and refined. There is even a special provencal herbs, which is rightfully considered a classic and complements thousands of different dishes. It is prepared on an impromptu basis from fresh leaves lettuce, and its main components are canned or boiled tuna, raw vegetables, anchovy fillet and chicken eggs.

This salad has gained popularity not only in France, but also in many other countries. At present, it is quite difficult to find a Nicoise salad prepared exactly according to the classical recipe, because even if the necessary cooking conditions are strictly observed, the components vary. Outside of southern France, the dish has undergone various innovations, the requirements for the products used are not so strict, which leads to the fact that boiled potatoes and beans often come across in recipes. It is often cooked with green legumes (peas or young green beans), different types onions, capers, cucumbers, sweet peppers.

In America, the type of this salad, popularized by Julia Child, is more familiar, it is her version of cooking and its various types that are common in English-speaking countries. All components of the salad are prepared in advance, and only then they are combined on a capacious plate, there are also forms resembling a sandwich with such a salad.

Tuna, which is a must traditional recipe, refers to those varieties of fish that, even in the process of conservation, do not lose all their useful properties. In terms of taste, tuna is in no way inferior to meat, and even surpasses it in terms of the number of useful elements contained in it. Tuna is rich in phosphorus, vitamins, unsaturated omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids required for the full functioning of the brain and cardiovascular system.

The main secret of this salad is in its dressing. As a rule, dressing for Niçoise is a vinaigrette sauce with the addition of Dijon mustard. It is a mixture of olive oil, light natural wine vinegar, red and black pepper, salt and a few drops of lemon juice. A more extended version may contain chopped shallots, garlic, or a mixture of Provence herbs, chopped to the consistency of gruel.

The taste of this salad for national Russian cuisine is a bit unusual. Quite famous, for example, is the Nicoise salad, performed in the Russian version. It involves replacing anchovies with the more popular sprat, which, of course, is somewhat reflected in its taste.

Classic recipe

For a classic salad recipe, you will need:

1. 10 g anchovies;
2. 10 pitted olives;
3. One cucumber;
4. One sweet pepper;
5. A bunch of green lettuce;
6. 8 cherry tomatoes;
7. 1 can of canned tuna;
8. 2 chicken eggs;
9. 1 tsp Dijon mustard;
10. 70 ml of olive oil;
11. 1 tbsp dark balsamic vinegar;
12. A pinch of salt;
13. A pinch of ground black pepper.

To prepare Nicoise, lettuce leaves can be any, and it is better to take anchovies in oil or in a marinade.

Place a pillow of well-washed and dried lettuce leaves on a wide plate. Moreover, the largest of them should be torn, decorating the edge of the dish with torn tops.

Cut sweet pepper and peeled cucumber into strips. Mix the vegetables and sprinkle them over the salad base.

Drain excess water from the fish, and break the tuna into small slices, place on the vegetables.

Divide the tomatoes into quarters and arrange beautifully on the edges of the dish. Cut the olives in half and spread over the fish.

In a small bowl, combine the oil, balsamic vinegar, Dijon mustard, pepper and salt and whisk everything into the sauce.

Decorate ready salad anchovy fillets and slices of hard-boiled eggs. Pour with whipped emulsion and immediately - on the table. This dish is served as a preliminary cold appetizer, but it can also be the main one.

The second type of prescription

This dish will turn out especially tasty with ground, juicy and fragrant tomatoes, young onion and fresh sweet pepper.

You will need:

1. Four tomatoes;
2. Three boiled eggs;
3. Three bulbs;
4. A bunch of green lettuce;
5. 8 anchovies;
6. 200 g of green beans;
7. One sweet pepper;
8. Two tablespoons olives
9. 150 g canned tuna;
10. Three cloves of garlic;
11. Seven tablespoons olive oil and a small amount for beans;
12. Two tsp lemon juice and about the same for beans;
13. 7 basil leaves;
14. 1.5 tbsp vinegar;
15. Salt pepper.

First, prepare the dressing - it should be infused. To do this, combine oil, finely chopped or passed through a press clove of garlic, chopped basil, salt, pepper and wine vinegar.

Put the beans in salted boiled water and cook it for 5 minutes. To keep the color and shape of the pods intact, immerse them for a minute in cool water.

Heat the oil in a frying pan, put the crushed garlic cloves and beans. If you like it to look fresh and slightly crunchy, fry for a minute, and if it is soft and tender, about three. Sprinkle the finished beans with parsley, remove from the stove, cool, and then season with lemon juice and olive oil.

Hard boil chicken eggs. Wash and cut vegetables.

In a tall salad bowl, with wide edges, place green salad, then in turn layers of onions, peppers, tomatoes, beans.

Repeat all layers several times and pour over with the present emulsion. Just before serving, top the salad with chopped tuna, olives, egg wedges and anchovies. Lightly salt, pepper and drizzle with lemon juice and olive oil.

Potato salad option

The next type of Nicoise salad is perfect when you need to tasty and quickly feed a group of people, each of whom has long formed their own culinary preferences. And due to the fact that the salad does not mix during serving, everyone will be able to choose a product to their liking. In addition, you can add variety to the recipe by adding artichoke heads, different varieties beans and olives, bell pepper slices, quail eggs, capers, croutons, etc.

For the salad you will need:

1. One head of iceberg lettuce;
2. 3-4 tubers young potatoes medium size;
3. One small red sweet onion;
4. 4 large tomatoes;
5. 3 boiled eggs;
6. 250 g canned tuna;
7. 8 pcs. anchovy fillet;
8. 0.5 st. pitted olives;
9. 1 handful of green fresh beans;
10. A small bunch of parsley;
11. 1.5 l. non-carbonated water in a bottle.

For refueling:

1. Six tbsp. olive oil;
2. Two tablespoons apple cider vinegar;
3. One tsp of salt;
4. Quarter tsp black pepper.

Remove the tips from the bean pods, cut it into strips 3 cm long. Boil water from the bottle with 1 tbsp. salt, add beans to it and cook for 3-4 minutes. Then quickly drain the water, and rinse the pods with cold water and place on a colander or paper towel.

Hard boil eggs, peel and cut into quarters. Divide each tomato into 8 wedges. Cut anchovies and olives in half.

Wash the potatoes thoroughly, pour boiling water over them and, after salting, cook in a “uniform”. Cool, then peel and cut each potato into 4 pieces.

Cut the onion into thin half rings. Put the iceberg on a dish, dividing into separate leaves. On one side, put the potatoes mixed with onions, and on the other, all the remaining ingredients.

Combine salt, pepper and vinegar for dressing. Once the salt has dissolved, beat the mixture with a fork. While continuing to whisk, slowly pour in the olive oil.

Pour dressing over prepared salad. Sprinkle with finely chopped parsley leaves. Food is served to the table immediately.

Chicken salad option

Nicoise salad can be prepared with poultry meat. It can be tender turkey meat or more familiar chicken fillet, which has already become traditional for Russia. Chicken is an indispensable product, white meat is a source of easily digestible protein and a large number others useful substances. Protein, in turn, saturates the body with amino acids that strengthen the immune system. In addition, chicken meat, with its balanced composition of amino acids, is very important product in children's diet. It is very useful for the formation of bone and muscle tissue and contributes to the development of intellectual abilities.

To prepare Nicoise salad with chicken you will need:

1. Four chicken fillets;
2. 250 g green freshly frozen beans;
3. Four boiled chicken eggs;
4. 150 g cherry tomatoes;
5. 50 g olives;
6. 70 g arugula lettuce.

For refueling:

1. Two cloves of garlic;
2. One tbsp. lemon juice;
3. 0.3 st. olive oil;
4. Two tsp mustard seeds.

Wash the chicken fillet, place it in a saucepan with water and bring to a boil over high heat. Remove the foam that appears, reduce the heat, salt and bring to readiness. Then remove the meat from the broth and, after cooling, cut into pieces of 1.5 cm.

While the chicken is cooking, prepare the dressing. To do this, peel and chop the garlic. Whisk butter with mustard, garlic and lemon juice.

Remaining chicken bouillon boil, add the beans and cook until they are soft. This will take about 6-7 minutes. Then discard the beans in a colander.

Chicken eggs must be boiled for 5 minutes "in the bag." Rinse with cool water, remove the shell and cut in half.

Cut the olives into slices. Wash and dry the arugula. Cut cherry tomatoes into halves.

Put the lettuce, beans and cherry tomatoes in a plate, pour over half the dressing and mix.

Put in the olive slices and stir again. Divide the salad among portions, garnishing with slices on top. chicken meat and egg halves. Pour over the rest of the dressing.

Have you tried Nicoise salad? If not, then we suggest you get to know this dish better. We will describe how it appeared, how to cook it properly.

History of occurrence

The history of this salad dates back to the 50s of the last century. Rumor has it that the great choreographer George Balanchine participated in the creation of the dish. Nicoise salad, the recipe with a photo of which we will present below, was a must in every cookbook. There is another version. It says that the dish was mainly prepared in the south of France and only for fishermen who, returning from the sea, loved to eat tasty and healthy. Then the Nicoise salad became practically national dish. It is very nutritious, but at the same time not very high in calories. The salad is prepared quickly and does not require large material costs.

Description

Today, there are so many ways to prepare this chic dish. Often, chefs argue whether this dish contains potatoes and whether it should be a mandatory ingredient in Nicoise. In a simplified version, the salad combines sweet peppers, leaf salad, sweet onions, eggs, tomatoes, as well as anchovies and olives. Refueling is made from vegetable oil with vinegar or lemon juice. Some recipes use green beans and canned tuna. As for the aforementioned beans, this ingredient should be mandatory, but the fish component is already optional. There will be more work with the sauce, garlic and mustard must be present in it. If the salad is from the “grand” version, then the main “hero” here will be primarily tuna. It is desirable that it be pickled, not canned. As for potatoes, there should be few of them so that they do not clog the dish, do not complicate it, but play a dominant role.

Salad "Nicoise": a classic recipe

This dish has several cooking methods. To begin with, we will consider the classic version. All the ingredients that we will now list are for four servings. To prepare a classic Nicoise salad, you will need:

• four tomatoes;
• one head of lettuce;
• three onions (preferably young);
• one clove of garlic;
• three boiled eggs;
• two tablespoons of small olives;
• anchovies in oil (eight fillets);
• three tablespoons of lemon juice;
• sweet red pepper;
• 150 grams of tuna in oil;
• two hundred grams of green beans.

Each Nicoise salad should include a dressing.

To prepare it you will need:

• one and a half tablespoons of wine vinegar;
• seven tablespoons of olive oil;
• sea ​​salt;
• eight leaves of green basil;
• ground black pepper;
• garlic clove.

The process of preparing a delicious salad

Consider the first stage of cooking:

1. So, we begin to prepare the Nicoise salad, the photo of which you see above. To begin with, you need to drain all the liquid from the tuna, and then disassemble it into fibers.
2. Vegetables should be mixed in advance so that they are a little infused.
3. Boil the beans in salted water for 15 minutes.
4. Then it must be thrown into a colander, rinsed in cold water. Thus, the beans will not lose their color and will be dense.
5. After that, you need to warm up two tablespoons of olive oil and add it to the vegetables. Then, for 10 minutes, all these ingredients must be boiled. Next, remove the vegetables from the heat and wait until they cool down. Then you need to add a little olive oil and a teaspoon of wine vinegar or lemon juice, as well as chopped parsley. Thus, you got something like a vinaigrette, but that's not all, the Nicoise salad, the recipe of which we are now describing, is not quite ready yet.

The next stage of preparation:

1. Now we sort the lettuce into leaves, dry it and wash it. After that, large leaves should be torn into a bowl, and the tomatoes should be cut in half, lengthwise, and then each part should be divided into 2 or three pieces.
2. Eggs must be boiled, and onions must be chopped.
3. We wash the olives, if they are large, cut them. But it is best to add small fruits to the Nicoise salad, which can be thrown whole.
4. As for sweet pepper, it must be cut into thin slices and then peeled.
5. The egg must be cut in such a way that quarters are obtained, and the anchovies must be thoroughly washed.
6. Salad "Nicoise" is best served in a salad bowl that expands upwards. Now you need to lay out the dish in layers. The first should consist of lettuce, the second of onions, the third of tomato, and the fourth of peppers and beans. These layers must be repeated several times. Then stir the vinaigrette with a fork and salt it to taste. After that, add the dish to the salad bowl and decorate it with egg quarters, anchovies and olives. Next, you need to pepper the salad again and add a little lemon juice. Thus, you will be very delicious salad"Nicoise".

We have considered the classic recipe for cooking. It is possible that this option is not to someone's liking. We will now describe another method of preparation.

Salad with tuna

Now let's look at how the Nicoise salad with tuna is made. To cook it, you first need to make a dressing. To prepare it you will need:

• mustard;
• grated garlic;
• balsamic vinegar;
• olive oil;
• chopped basil.

For the salad you will need:

• four tomatoes;
• eight boiled quail eggs;
• eight anchovies;
• 200 grams of green beans;
• one salad;
• three pieces of red onion;
• two tablespoons of green olives;
• potato;
• 15 grams of hard cheese;
• two teaspoons of lemon juice;
• 150 grams of chilled tuna.

salad preparation

First you need to prepare the dressing for the salad. To do this, mix the following ingredients: olive oil, balsamic vinegar, mustard, honey, chopped basil and grated garlic. Dressing should be infused for at least twenty minutes, so you need to cook it first.

Now you need to heat the olive oil in a pan and put the beans, as well as crushed garlic. In order for the beans to be crispy, they need to be fried for no more than two minutes, and if you want them to be soft, for at least five minutes. Once the beans are done, drizzle with garlic oil and lemon juice, then sprinkle with parsley. Then it will all need to be removed from the stove and allowed to cool slightly.

On a quick fire, you need to fry the marinated tuna in olive oil on both sides. When it is ready, you need to sprinkle it with lemon juice.

After that, you need to boil the eggs, and the tomatoes, green onion, red and sweet pepper finely chopped.

Let's move on to the next step. In a deep, transparent plate, you will need to put lettuce leaves, basil, then add a little onion, pepper and tomato (in cut form) on top. And then you can lay out the sliced ​​\u200b\u200bfried tuna.

Such a Nicoise salad, the recipe of which we have described to you, must be decorated with olives, anchovies, as well as quail eggs and olives. Then we dress the salad with sauce and serve it to the table.

Conclusion

Now you know how to cook Nicoise salad. We have provided the recipe with photos. We hope you can make it a reality in your kitchen.

Classic salad "Nicoise"

France is considered the birthplace of "Nicoise" ─ this salad was officially first prepared in Nice in 1950-60 (compare the same roots of the words Niçoise and Nice). At that time, he was generally present on the menu of any self-respecting southern French restaurant, and gradually became one of the most famous classic salads with fish, fresh vegetables and boiled egg, which is seasoned with olive oil mixed with lemon juice.

Homeland "Nicoise" ─ Nice, the heart of the Cote d'Azur (one of the restaurants in the Old Town)

Today "Nicoise" is considered very gourmet dish(if you don’t agree, just approach the serving issue from the right side!), but it “began” as the food of simple hard workers ─ sailors from French ports. These unpretentious guys took with them for a snack and mixed in the first container they could boast of everything they could boast of: their own grown ripe tomatoes, green beans, artichokes, green olives and canned anchovies. How did it happen that the Frenchman Jean Madsen, who at that time was the mayor of Nice, came up with the idea to record and reproduce folk culinary creativity in a restaurant, and not field kitchen we won't know anymore. The main thing is that he nevertheless recorded the recipe of that very "sailors' salad" in his cookbook, and thereby immortalized it in the world history of gastronomy.

"Nicoise" can be called a seasonal dish: most often in updated versions it appears annually in the spring-summer menus, when it's time for fresh "greens" ─ lettuce and vegetables (peppers and green beans).

Today there are many different options cooking "Nicoise", but the classic recipe remains a combination of lettuce, sweet onions and sweet peppers, tomatoes, eggs, olives and anchovies with olive oil dressing with lemon juice or wine vinegar. Another popular version of the salad - one that has become even more widespread due to the greater availability of the main ingredients - involves the addition of canned own juice tuna (as a substitute for anchovies) and green beans. It is this "Nicoise", today, perhaps, is one of the most famous and widespread around the world. As for the potato, the debate about whether it was included in the original recipe or was added later continues to this day. We are silent about rice and corn ─ they, for sure, were definitely not in the authentic composition.

Provençal Nicoise IngredientsPhoto Camille Labro

As for varieties, when cooking, you can “play” in variations endlessly (approximately this has been happening for a long time with other “folk” salads ─ Caesar, Olivier and Caprese). It is not forbidden to experiment both with varieties of tuna (salted, fried, in its own juice, smoked), and with a vegetable component (beans ─ green, red, white, artichokes, asparagus, celery, etc.). For classic version salad our chef Ilya Zakharov advises to cook fresh tuna in a frying pan herbs until medium rare (with a pink streak inside to keep it very juicy) and spread on a plate, and as a dressing use Dijon mustard, olive oil, honey, lemon juice and a drop soy sauce. From vegetables it is better to take tomatoes (bake), green asparagus(blanch and randomly arrange on a plate), fresh fennel (cut into slices) and thinly sliced ​​radish ─ for decoration. It is optimal to use quail eggs, cooking them so that the yolk remains liquid.

Since “Nicoise” is a picturesque embodiment of Provencal cuisine on the table (and indeed its peculiar symbol), it is best to supplement it with a glass of light unsweetened French white ─ we are looking for an accompaniment to fish! - guilt.

Three different "Nicoise"

"A la classic"

Ingredients

6 medium potatoes
1 tsp cumin
230 g green beans
4 eggs
340 g canned tuna
1 head romaine lettuce
1 red bell pepper
3 medium tomatoes
1 cup Greek olives
Salt to taste

Cooking

Boil potatoes with cumin in a small amount of water. Add the beans to the pan and keep on fire for another 3-5 minutes, remove from the stove and cool. Hard boil the eggs, cool under running water, peel and cut into quarters. Rinse lettuce leaves, dry and tear with your hands. Cut the peppers, peeled from the core, into longitudinal strips, tomatoes into slices into six parts.

Prepare the sauce: mix 1-2 tbsp. l. wine vinegar and 6-8 tbsp. l. olive oil, add 1 stalk finely chopped shallots and season with pinches of black pepper and dried tarragon and/or basil.

Put pieces of lettuce leaves on the bottom of a plate or a deep salad bowl (depending on serving - general or individual), on top - chopped vegetables, eggs and pieces of tuna. Dress salad with dressing, garnish with pitted olives and serve.

If you need to cook "Nicoise" when the artichokes were not yet ripe, the French women replaced them with ordinary radishes, which were cut into thin slices.

For those who don't like fish

Ingredients

2-3 chicken breasts
250 g green beans (can be frozen)
200 g cherry tomatoes
4 chicken eggs (or 8 quail)
Arugula salad
Olives and/or pitted olives for garnish

Cooking

Boil the chicken fillet until tender, cool. With a sharp knife, cut across the fibers into cubes 1.5 cm thick. Cook the eggs in the “bag” method (boil chicken for about five minutes, quail - no more than three). In the broth left after cooking the chicken, boil the green beans for 7-10 minutes until they are soft (discard in a colander, cool).

Prepare your dressing. Finely chop two cloves of garlic. Mix and beat thoroughly 50 g of olive oil, 2 tsp. Dijon mustard and 1 tbsp. l. lemon juice. Add garlic, salt and pepper to taste, cool slightly.

Put the washed leaves of arugula in a deep plate, add boiled beans and half-cut cherry tomatoes. Salt, pour over some of the dressing and mix well. Randomly arrange chicken pieces and halved olives on top. Decorate with egg halves, spread the rest of the dressing over the surface and serve.

Vegetarian

Ingredients

8-10 green asparagus stalks
100 g canned red and white beans
2 carrots
100 g cherry tomatoes
1/2 can of olives
1 red bell pepper
1 boiled potato (optional)
Any green salad

Cooking

Peel the asparagus, rinse and boil in salted water for 5 minutes. Cool, rinse and pat dry. Marinate the asparagus in a mixture of 1 tbsp. l. olive oil and lemon juice for 30-40 minutes, then cut into short sticks. Cut carrots and red pepper into thin strips, potatoes into cubes, cut cherry tomatoes in half.

Prepare your dressing. 4 tbsp. l. olive oil, juice of half a lemon, 1 tsp. Dijon mustard and 1/2 tsp. wine vinegar, beat with a whisk or punch in a blender, salt and season to taste with Provence herbs.

Put lettuce leaves on a plate (you can pre-tear with your hands) and “collect” the salad in the following order: potatoes, peppers and carrots, asparagus, pre-mixed two types of beans. Pour the dressing over the salad and put the olives on top, serve.

Ilya Zakharov─ brand chef of the Sochi Casino and Resort restaurants (the fashionable Brunello and the more democratic Buffett), a member of the Federation of Professional Chefs and Confectioners of Russia, a finalist of the Silver Triangle contest of the Best Young Chefs of Russia. Ilya plans to open a laboratory where they will discover new tastes and combinations and train a new generation of chefs.

In search of new tasty, but not heavy dishes, housewives sometimes rummage through tons of literature. And they don’t always find what they want, because cooking has developed so many goodies over the centuries of human existence that it’s easy to accidentally miss something interesting. Those wishing to update their menu are advised to contact and prepare the Nicoise salad. The classic recipe went for a walk around the world, not only because it makes it possible to cook tasty dish, but also because it strikingly combines lightness and satiety.

A few clarifications

The name of the salad accurately indicates its origin - for connoisseurs of the French language. A dish originally from sunny Nice glorified the city no less than the famous beaches. With all the popularity that the Nicoise salad has acquired, classic recipe it does not exist in a single copy. We can say that almost any option served on the table is recognized as traditional. It is well established that the salad originally included fish, tomatoes, olives and garlic. But this is hardly the very first recipe, since tomatoes became widespread in France only in the 18th century.

Moreover, although Nicoise is most often prepared with tuna, the classic recipe indicates anchovies. At the same time, most modern culinary specialists still tend to consider tuna as a tradition. In relation to it, the version in which the fish is grilled is considered the most successful, and so that the middle of the slice remains pink.

With such a huge variety of dish modifications, it's easy to get confused. We have selected the most successful and closest to the primary (presumably) options.

salad dressing

What all the chefs who prepared Nicoise agree on is that the classic recipe necessarily involves the use of a special dressing. For her, pure, unflavoured olive oil, pepper and salt are thoroughly mixed. This will be the base; then you can experiment with herbs. The most successful in the sauce for Nicoise are oregano, basil, sage, thyme, tarragon, rosemary - in general, those that are usually classified as Provence. Often fresh lemon juice is added to the sauce; it is permissible to replace balsamic with wine vinegar, but the principle of the base must be preserved.

The simplest "Nicoise" classic: recipe with photo

Small tomatoes (4 pieces), a large cucumber and four hard-boiled eggs crumble in large slices. Red and yellow bell peppers are cut into strips, a 100-gram jar of black olives - in circles, tuna in its own juice - optionally. Two green onion feathers and a sprig of basil are crushed, all components are combined and seasoned with olive oil and balsamic vinegar.

Most popular option

Most culinary experts do not agree to consider the modest dish described above to be real. In its modern form, it is usually made more complex, and only then is it recognized as a natural Nicoise salad. The classic recipe step by step will look like this.

1. A small lettuce onion is cut into transparent half rings, sprinkled with wine vinegar and left to marinate.
2. 100 grams of asparagus beans are cooked for no longer than three minutes and (to preserve the color) are doused with cold water.
3. 8 quail eggs hard boiled and cut in half. If you replaced them with two chicken ones - 6-8 pieces lengthwise.
4. Tuna (standard can) is broken into pieces by hand.
5. 8 cherry tomatoes cut in half.
6. A dozen anchovies are cleaned and filleted.

Preparatory work has been completed. Now the plates are lined with lettuce leaves, and Nicoise itself is laid out on them: tuna with squeezed onions - beans - anchovies with eggs - tomatoes and whole olives. Everything spills classic dressing- and on the table.

Chicken Nicoise

There are people who are indifferent to fish. There are those who frankly do not like her in any form. The kings of cooking take into account the needs of all gourmets, so there is also meat french salad"Nicoise". The classic recipe allows you to use only chicken fillet and, frankly, he is right: with any other meat, the dish turns out to be rough and heavy. The fillet is boiled, cooled and cut into medium pieces or manually disassembled into fibers. A quarter of a kilo of green beans is boiled in chicken broth. Now a little subtlety. When chicken Nicoise is being prepared, the classic recipe is somewhat modified: four eggs should not be hard-boiled, but boiled “in a bag” - this way the dish will turn out to be more tender and juicy. They are cut in half lengthwise, cherry tomatoes are processed in the same way, and olives are cut into circles. For dressing, combine 3 tablespoons of olive oil, a spoonful of lemon juice (it is here instead of vinegar), two tablespoons of grain or Dijon mustard and two crushed garlic cloves. The sauce should thicken up a bit. For a salad, a handful of arugula, beans and tomatoes are first combined. They are poured over with half the dressing, mixed and placed in a salad bowl. Chicken, olives and eggs are placed on top and the rest of the sauce is added.

Poached egg option

And here is another Nicoise salad with tuna. A classic recipe becomes even more classic as one of the main ingredients is prepared in a pure French way. To start, the tuna steak is breaded in sesame seeds and fried - very quickly, for a minute on each side. The next step is to create a poached egg. Classic way- add salt to boiling water, pour a spoonful of vinegar into it, twist a funnel in the center of the saucepan and carefully drive it into it fresh egg. It should cook for a minute or two until the protein seizes. For unsure cooks, another method can be proposed: break an egg into a ladle and lower it into boiling water prepared in the described way.

It remains to collect "Nicoise". Lettuce is torn (you can take a little different), tuna is cut into it, boiled green beans and coarsely grated carrots are poured. For dressing, a little anchovies and a clove of garlic are crushed; they are stirred with pepper in olive oil combined with wine vinegar and anchovy juice. The sauce is poured over the products in the plate, poached is laid out on top, and on the sides of it are halves of cherry tomatoes and olives. You can enjoy!

Flight of fancy allowed!

When the Nicoise salad is started, the classic recipe turns out to be very flexible and tolerant. First, regarding the fish. It is not always possible to buy tuna or anchovies. It doesn't matter - any spicy fish will do. For example, sprat, anchovy or capelin. Secondly, among the many variants of the classics, there are recipes with potatoes - and they are recognized by the French. Thirdly, you can experiment with any fresh vegetables, supplementing the prescribed list. In a word, every culinary specialist can create his own Nissoise, and it will turn out to be quite classic as a result.