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.

When you eat out, salades niçoises are always more or less the same, with minor variations from one restaurant to another…and often a little on the boring side. So after a few thoughts on how to make things a little more exciting and with a different way to prepare them, I came up with a salad that has the ingredients of a salade niçoise (less the salmon), that was lovely. Most of the ingredients are here but in a different way to present and cook them, which modifies all the textures and make them very interesting and exciting. Here the green beans are cut and mixed with the greens and cherry tomatoes. The olives are turned into a tapenade which is an olive paste from the South of France spread on top of the bread. The egg is poached and not boiled and the other final touch is the salt, I used sea weed salt (from Brittany) but of course, you can use any other sea salt.

If you want to remain traditional and feel the salmon shall not be seen on a salade Niçoise, use tuna instead. This salad is really fun, and you can play with it using your imagination as you wish. For instance, if I had quail eggs, I would have poached two quail eggs and made two tartines, instead of one. Now there is not one particular recipe for salade niçoise, and each cook can make it the way he wants, even though the traditional recipe is not supposed to have any cooked ingredients, only raw. So if you want to say that my salad is not a Niçoise, like a Nicois (a person from Nice) would probably say. Well, I am ok with that…it is nonetheless delicious.

Sometimes for specific recipes, I like to remain as close as the original recipe as I can, but in some more “flexible” recipes, I also like to have fun in the kitchen and play around with food…but obviously it needs to be good or it shall not have its spot on the blog.

Ingredients for 2

• 1 salmon filet of about 1/2 lb
• 4 small round yukon potatoes
• 1.5 cups fine green beans
• about 20 cherry tomatoes, cut in half
• 1 cup of mixed greens or arugula
• 1 shallot, finely chopped
• 1/2 bell red pepper, roasted,  peeled and cut in stripes
• 2 eggs
• 2 baguettes slices or country bread

For the vinaigrette

• 2 tbs extra virgin unfiltered olive oil
• 3 tbs lemon olive oil
• juice of 1 meyer lemon
• orange-champagne vinegar or any mild fruity vinegar
• about 8 leaves basil, chopped
• Sea weed salt
• pepper

For the tapenade

• 1/4 lb kalamata olives
• 2 good quality small anchovies
• about 6 capers
• 1/2 garlic clove
• 2 tbs olive oil

Preparation

Start by cooking the potatoes in water. When the potatoes are about 3/4 cooked but still a little firm in the center, remove from stove. Let them cool and then peel. Set aside. Cut the salmon in about one inch cube pieces.

Cook green beans in boiling water until cooked but still firm. When cooked remove from stove, then let them cool and cut in about 2 inches pieces.

Using a wooden skewer, place one piece of salmon, then one potato, until you have two pieces each on each skewer.

In the meantime, in a container mix cherry tomatoes, salad, green beans, bell peppers. Prepare vinaigrette by combining all ingredients together.

For the tapenade, mix all ingredients together in a mixer. Toast baguette and spread tapenade on top.

Broil skewer in the oven until golden brown and salmon cooked all the way through or pink (depending on your tastes).

Poach egg in boiling water for about 2 minutes (poaching technique will come in another post).

Pour vinaigrette on salad, toss well and keep some vinaigrette for the skewer.

Plate first salad/beans/tomatoes mixture, then place skewer on top, add the remaining vinaigrette on top of skewer. Serve with tartine of tapenade topped with poached egg, and drizzle with olive oil.