Announcing the marriage of Albacore Tuna and Niçoise Olives. These two were star-crossed lover from the beginning — consider this your invitation to the wedding!
Ingredients
For the Salad:
6 oz blanched green beans
8 oz blanched zucchini and/or fava beans
4 eggs
½ cup nicoise olives (mixed olives work too)
2 small cucumbers
1 pint cherry tomatoes, sliced in half
1 pound baby potatoes, cooked and cooled
2 heads green leaf, red leaf, butter, or romaine lettuce
1 cup arugula or thinly sliced radicchio or kale (optional)
¼ chopped parsley
For the Tuna:
8 oz albacore tuna (or try roasted salmon, any other roasted or oil poached fish, or oil packed tuna )
2 cups olive oil (reserve ¾ cup for vinaigrette and let cool after cooking)
1 bay leaf
3 garlic cloves (1 for the zucchini)
Dressing:
1 lemon
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
1 tablespoon dijon mustard
1 tablespoon minced shallot
Instructions:
Prepare all the vegetables, toss blanched zucchini with grated garlic and olive oil, peel fava beans if using, cut cherry tomatoes in half and slice cucumbers.
Season the tuna generously with salt and set aside. Heat up the oil with 2 cloves of garlic and a bay leaf over low heat. Add the tuna in and cook over a low flame for 7-10 minutes, until the tuna is tender and can flake apart. Remove and set aside.
Bring a small pot of water to a boil, add in the eggs, and cook for exactly 7 minutes. Remove from the pot straight into ice water to stop the cooking. Let cook and then peel the eggs. Slice in half just before serving. These eggs will have a jammy yolk, if you prefer a hard boiled egg simmer for 12 minutes instead, 14 if they're very large.
Make the dressing - in a medium sized bowl, whisk the mustard, shallot, juice of 1 lemon, and vinegar with a seasoning of salt and pepper. Slowly drizzle in ¾ cup of the cooking oil from the fish (or use any olive oil) while whisking to emulsify the dressing. Season to taste.
Assemble the salad with greens on the bottom and the other ingredients on top, drizzle the vinaigrette on top, finish with chopped parsley and salt and pepper. Toss the serve.