a reason for a blog; pan grilled tuna & new potato and vegetable salad

My friend Barbara in Belfast  – been on my case for a couple of years now, to do a cookery book  – because of my recipes … she has always been on about this dressing to my tuna salad … so here it’s, but it became a blog instead of a cookery book. Sorry, Barbara!

I posted this salad recipe first time in January 2012, but then I didn’t have any photos of my own to go with it and also I have altered the recipe a bit – I have change how I use the dressing – I coat the vegetables over heat, becuase that makes the vegetables to soak up the dressing much better when they are warm. And no dressing soaking lettuce on the plate, which I hate.

And as you can see did I had loads of summer sunshine in my plate too, so here we go …. AGAIN!!!!!

Pan Grilled Tuna on Warm New Potato and Vegetable Salad, serves 4

4 x 110 gr tuna steaks – pan grilled
12 plum cherry tomatoes, halved lengthways
4 boilded, 9 min – perfect egg should be like a daffodil
200 gr green beans; whole and blanched (used frozen)
300 gr mixed lettuce – washed; gem, baby spinach, water cress & romaine
200 gr red onion; finely sliced in rings
12 radishes, sliced
24 good quality black olives

Dressing; can be served warm or cold
150 ml olive oil
1 crushed garlic clove
2 limes or 1 lemon, juice
50 ml water
30 ml (2tblsp) sugar
10 ml (1dsp) mixed Italian herbs
30 ml (2 tblsp) chopped fresh parsley – added just before serving

Preperation: Start with the dressing – just mix everything together and mix well …. except the chopped parsley

1. Boil the potatoes with skin on in salted water, when cold cut into bite size. Trim and boil the beans whole, for about 6-8 min, have to be al dente. Drain and refresh under running cold water – to keep color.
2. Egg – to be boiled in 9 min .. use to say they should be like daffodil; little darker yellow and a bit soft in the middle. There is nothing worst then over cooked egg on a freshly made salad. Half them before serving.
3. Radishes, sliced
4. Tomatos cut in half
5. Red onion, slice to thin rings
6. Tuna steaks – seared in a grill pan
7. Put all the cut vegetables – except the radishes – back in a pan on heat and add 3/4 of the dressing and coat the vegeables well with dressing.
8. Base 4 indv. bowls with the lettuce mix – divide the olives, sliced radishes and the warm dressing coated vegeatbles – top with the tuna pieces and finish of with 2 egg halves per portion and drizzle the remaining dressing over the egg halves.

Of course my salad is based on the famous Salad Niçoise, but I don’t like anchovies.
In France you don’t get neither the radishes or the peppers – something I have added along the way during all the years I been doing this salad.

I love it both with fresh tuna or with canned – doesn’t really matter, a fantastic salad what ever been used. Of course a lot of the flavors is down to the dressing.

One of the reasons why I love this salad is because I connected it with my visits to Nice, France. And of course I had my best ever Salad Niçoise in Nice harbor at a little restaurant by name “Le Goelette”, just a little basic restaurant –nothing fancy at all – but their Salad Niçoise is worth writing to home about.  Also worth the walk from Promenade Anglaise for.
And another reason is all the colors in the salad.

The worst salad I had was in Barcelona on some fancy restaurant in the Port Olympic, “La Fitora”. It costed an arm and a leg – and they served me canned tuna and black olives only on limp lettuce.

“Boy, those French! They have a different word for everything.”
Steve Martin

If course my music cloud have to be French – “Ne me quitte pas” (English: “Don’t leave me”) is a 1959 French song by the Belgian singer-songwriter, Jacques Brel. It has been covered in the original French by many artists and has also been translated into and performed in many other languages. One of my favorite French songs ever – it claims that  it’s Édith Piaf that sings here, but I know Édith’s voice and I’m also a big fan of Mireille Mathieu, so I’m 100% sure it’s Mireille that sings on this track. I don’t think Édith recorded this song, even if she sang it.

“Ne me quitte pas.
Il faut oublier.
Tout peut s’oublier
Qui s’enfuit deja.
Oublier le temps
Des malentendus
Et le temps perdu
A savoir comment
Oublier ces heures
Qui tuaient parfois
A coups de pourquoi
Le coeur du bonheur.
Ne me quitte pas.”

***********
“Don’t leave me
We must forget
All can be forgotten
Which is already fleeing away
To forget the times
Of misunderstanding
And the lost times
To know how
To forget those hours
Which sometimes killed
With blows of “Why?”
The heart of happiness
Don’t leave me”