Salmon Niçoise Salad
Ingredients
- 2 salmon fillets (6 oz. each)
- 2 c. fresh green beans, trimmed
- 2 medium red skin potatoes
- 1 medium head Romaine or Boston Bibb lettuce, washed and chopped
- 2 tomatoes, diced, or 20 cherry tomatoes, halved
- ½ c. sliced black olives
- 2 eggs, hard cooked, cut in wedges
- Vinaigrette:
- 2 T. lemon juice
- 2 T. red wine vinegar
- 2 T. Dijon mustard
- 1 T. shallots, minced
- 1 T. garlic, minced
- ⅛ t. salt
- ⅛ t. pepper
- ¾ t. sugar
- ½ c. + 2 T. olive oil
Preparation
Season salmon fillets with salt and pepper, grill or bake and remove skin.
Blanch green beans.
Boil potatoes until tender, chill, and chop.
Place all vinaigrette ingredients except oil in bowl and whisk. Slowly add oil, whisking as you drizzle it in. Adjust flavor with salt and pepper as needed.
In a large bowl, add lettuce, tomatoes, green beans, potatoes and black olives. Toss with a few tablespoons of vinaigrette or your favorite dressing adding more to your liking.
Top with salmon and place egg wedges on the side.
Learn More About Green Beans
You might turn down a recipe featuring unripe fruit pods, but call them by their more familiar name, green beans, and the
dish is likely to be an instant favorite. Within hours of being picked, tender young beans become wrinkled and limp, and lose their moisture and sugar. When cooking green beans, time is of the essence! Boiling is the best method whether you want to hold green beans for later use (blanch) or cook them to eat right away.
Here’s how:
1. In a large pot, bring two to three quarts of water to a boil.
2. While the water is heating, wash and drain the beans and snap off the ends. If the beans are really small, leave the tips.
3. When the water boils, add one teaspoon of salt and the beans. Do not cover the pot or your green beans will become gray beans!
4. Let the water return to a boil, then set the timer – three minutes to blanch, five minutes to cook.
5. If blanching, prepare a large bowl of ice water. Drain the beans and plunge them in the ice water. When cool, drain, dry and store in a container in the refrigerator for up to three days. Serve blanched beans cold, or heat them up in boiling water.
6. If cooking to eat right away, season and serve. There’s still hope for green beans that are fibrous and tough. Roasting converts the starchy fibers to sugars, improving the texture and flavor. Wash, cut off the ends and pat dry. Toss the trimmed beans in olive oil. Roast at 450°F on a baking sheet for about 20 minutes, turning once. Season and serve.
Looking for no muss, no fuss? America’s Test Kitchen™ checked out all kinds of packaged green beans. They found canned green beans to be mushy and bland, and frozen ones to be waterlogged and spongy.
Ultimately, it’s worth spending the few minutes trimming fresh green beans.
Peggy Crum, MA, RDFeatured Recipes
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