The Composition of a Salad

I have not made a Salad Nicoise in ages....I love a good composed salad (think Cobb, think Chef), but I had forgotten how much patience it takes to make one.   It needs to look good as well as taste good.   Blanching the beans, making the potato 'salad', hard boling eggs, finding the perfect tomatoes, and yes, you do need the perfect olives, obviously, nicoise olives are best, but any really good Italian or Greek Olives will suffice. I used tuna fish packed in water, not olive oil.  Purists will say to use tuna packed in Olive Oil is the only way to go. Could not find any, hey, I substituted!

I used my stick blender to make the dressing, I was a little excited and over emulsified it, I should have used the whisk attachment, but hey, it's just really, really thick, still tasty, but thick. As you can see, I have everything neatly organized in separate bowls so I can "compose" the salad.   I did forget that I had a huge jar of capers in the fridge, but oh well.  

All of the above made a huge salad for my dinner with leftovers for lunch.  What you see in the upper left-hand corner in the batter bowl is a  potato salad I made with the extra potatoes. I enhanced with some chopped green beans, a bit of yellow pepper and some of the dressing. It does not have mayo and since I almost over emulsified the dressing, it was a great substitution for the mayo, but it was lovely and tangy....

Here is the finished product....yeah, my food presentation needs a little work, but this was still really really tasty! The recipi, just google it and use any of the many. I did a variation on Julia Child and one I found on The Kitchen........I'd serve this with a really light white wine or it has even been suggested to serve with a Rose.....