After my little trip to Portland, I came back very inspired, with lots of recipe ideas. I think I fell in love with the city, its beautiful trails and restaurant scene, not to mention the gorgeous neighborhoods with magnificent trees and greenery. Portland truly has great quality produce and what a wonderful city if you care for great organic and fresh food and the outdoors. It’s heaven. At least, I hope heaven will be like that.

After a delightful lunch at Tasty n Alder, downtown Portland, where I ordered a salade niçoise and smoked trout board, it gave me the idea to play around with the salad, its content and texture.

The traditional salade niçoise (from the city of Nice in France) has similar ingredients, except for the bitter greens which I added here. I grilled some radicchio and endive, and made my egg “à la coque” as we say (in the shell) instead of hard boiled egg. I did not add red peppers because I used a vinegar with infused red peppers. The potatoes are broiled in the oven and the salad is a mix of shredded endives and radicchio with anchovies and capers. This salad can be served lukewarm, or cold. I like it lukewarm when I am not in the mood for a salad.

You need top ingredients to truly appreciate this salad. Get the best tomatoes, green beans and olive oil.

There are different steps in this recipe, but well worth it. If you are in hurry, I would not recommend this, but if you have some time ahead and in the mood for a wholesome and delicious meal, try it out.

Ingredients for 2

• 100 g (or two handful) thin green beans
• 4 small red potatoes, cut in halves
• 3 small endives, cut lengthwise
• 1 head of radicchio, cut in small quarters
• 8 small farm tomatoes
• 1/2 red tuna steak
• 1 tsp red and black sesame seeds
• 4 anchovies, chopped
• 1 tsp capers, chopped
• 1 tbs olive oil

For the vinaigrette

•  1 tbs kalamata olives, chopped
• 3 tbs olive oil (raw and unrefined)
• 1 tbs red pepper vinegar (or any other mild vinegar)
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tsp chives, chopped
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Cook green beans in a pot of salted boiling water.

Season potatoes with olive oil, salt and pepper and broil in the oven until golden brown on both sides.

Heat up a skillet and grill radicchio and endive on both sides. Keep warm.

In small pan, place eggs and count three minutes after the water started boiling. Remove from stove and cut the top of the egg.

Coat tuna with white and black sesame seeds. Heat up a grill pan or skillet and grill on both sides, making sure not to over cook it. The middle needs to remain a little pink (or up to your tastes). Adjust with salt and pepper. Cut in 5mm slices.

In a mixing container, combine shredded endive and radicchio and add anchovies, capers, olive oil, salt and pepper. Toss well.

In a large plate, place one egg in the center of the plate. Arrange some shredded salad around. Place nicely all other ingredients around the plate. Drizzle with vinaigrette.

For the vinaigrette

Combine all ingredients together.

I tried a new hair salon today, I think by now I went to almost all the hair salons in San Francisco and I haven’t found a stylist that knows how to cut short hair. I like my hair very short and it seems that most women in the US wear long hair, therefore most hair salons don’t know how to cut short hair. They know how to color and cut long hair, but as far as short is concerned, they just have one hair cut that they do on everyone. So I tried a new salon down town, and I got assigned to a hair stylist. I don’t know if this was me or her, but she did not talk at all, so I tried to make some conversation, nothing really philosophical, but to somehow tuer le temps as we say (kill time), and nothing really seemed to interest her, so I just kept quiet, thinking maybe she was having a bad day…everyone is allowed to have one. Anyway, my hair is short and I still don’t like the cut, nothing different than usual, but on top of it, the hair stylist was not pleasant.

Well, one good thing about today are my lovely rolls…

I love bittery greens, and the bitter the better! Doing my regular grocery shopping I found those gorgeous purple red mustard leaves, they seemed so young and tender, that it would have been silly not to buy them. I always have some spring roll wraps, that I buy thinking I will use them, but never do, which is a shame. So I promised to myself that no matter what, I will prepare something with those wraps. Of course, you can just imagine what happened to the wraps and red mustard leaves…they got married and that was a match from heaven.

The other highlight of this dish is really the beet vinaigrette. The sweetness of the beets was incredibly delicious combined with the bitterness of the greens and melting kasseri cheese. Kasseri cheese is Greek and is made out of sheep milk with a touch of goat milk. Its consistency is similar to mozzarella, and tends to melt easily. You can mix the cheese with the greens, I added the cheese at the end, that’s the reason why it’s barely noticeable on the picture, but you can mix it with the greens. This is a fairly quick dish to prepare and is delicious as a main dish with a salad or as an appetizer.

Ingredients for 6 rolls

• 1 bunch mustard leaves
• 6 spring roll wraps
• 1 garlic clove, crushed
• 1 tbs kalamata olives chopped
• zest of 1 lemon
• 1 tbs olive oil (+1 for the pan)
• 5 tbs kasseri cheese

For the beet vinaigrette

• 5 small baby beets
• 1/2 cup vegetable broth
• 1 tbs olive oil
• 1 tsp raspberry vinegar
• salt and pepper

Preparation

Wash mustard leaves thoroughly. Bring a large of salted pot of water to a boil, and cook mustard leaves for about 5 minutes or until tender. Drain, let cool and squeeze extra water using your hands. Chop finely. Heat olive oil in a pan, add garlic, stir for a few minutes, then add chopped mustard leaves. Adjust with salt and pepper (don’t add to much salt since the cheese and olives are already salted). Add lemon zest and stir for another minute or so. Remove from stove and set aside. Add olives. At this point, you can add cheese to the mixture or add it at then end, like I did.

Place on wrap on a flat surface and add greens and cheese. Roll like a cigar (not that I have ever rolled a cigar). Proceed the same way with all the rolls.

Heat olive oil in a pan, and add each rolls, watch them carefully, they burn easily, turn them around to brown all sides. Remove from the pan and drain extra oil in a paper towel. Serve with arugula leaves and beet vinaigrette on the side.

For the vinaigrette

Cook beets until tender in water. Peel and let cool. Blend in a mixer with the rest of the ingredients.