salad nicoise

I can't be the only one out there with romantic notions about Paris. If you told me that a particular food item was from Paris it suddenly becomes that much more appealing. That explains my unabashed excitement at the prospect of making this Salad Nicoise.

Unfortunately this recipe is a fail on all levels. Lets start with the instruction - or lack there of. It all seems simple enough, but for half the items they must be cleaned, trimmed, cooked and sliced. Each item taking a different course of prep. This is where I give huge props to Nuno who always begins dinner first since he's home within minutes. He hard boiled the eggs to perfection. Luckily, top to bottom all the produce (half of which came from Tina's farm stand) was beautifully fresh and cooked perfectly.

Some minor revisions to this recipe include adding anchovy paste to the dressing instead of eating whole fillets. This recipe is actually published as a Salmon Nicoise Salad in Everyday Food's Great Food Fast book, but I really liked the idea of keeping this salad traditional so we used Skipjack Tuna. Thank goodness we made that revision because I can't imagine how much longer it would have taken to steam the salmon considering all the other prep work involved.

All in all, the flavour just isn't there with this salad. It looks delicious so colourful and fresh, but really isn't anything special. Even knowing this is the classic salad eaten on the French Riviera isn't enough to make me think it's delicious.

The one nice thing about this dinner is that this is the one salad Owen can eat. He's not into lettuce and dressing yet but he does like 'veggies'. Along with several of the veggies, eggs and tuna this a great healthy meal for a kid.