Nicoise salad with tuna

We will pre-prepare all the products that require boiling - potatoes, eggs, green beans. Hard boil eggs for salad. It is advisable to take a young potato, as it will be used in a salad with a peel. Put the unpeeled potatoes in a saucepan, fill with salted water and cook for about 15-20 minutes until tender. It should not be boiled so that whole pieces are preserved when cutting. Let's open a little secret: even if you come across a boiled potato, with a high starch content, there is an opportunity to save the day - immediately after cooking, cover it with ice or pour ice water into the tubers and leave for 5-10 minutes.

Dip the whole string beans in boiling water, add a pinch of salt and cook the pods for 5-7 minutes until tender. Don't overcook the beans so they don't become too soft. After boiling, transfer it to a separate bowl and fill with ice water. Leave for 4-5 minutes, then drain in a sieve or colander and dry.

While the potatoes are ready on the stove, let's cut the vegetables: cut the sweet lettuce into half rings, the tomatoes into quarters, sweet peppers and green beans into cubes.

Cut the boiled potatoes in their skins into large pieces (small ones can be halves), eggs into four parts or in half if you use quail ones.

All the ingredients are practically prepared, you can start decorating: put lettuce leaves on the dish, put peppers and green beans on the left, potatoes on the right. Sprinkle all the half rings of sweet onion on top.

Put quarters of tomatoes on the onion.

The next layer is pieces of canned tuna in oil (try not to chop it too much) and olives. Very often, anchovies are put in the Nicoise salad along with tuna, they give an additional spicy note to the salad and make it more expressive.

Put the eggs on top and sprinkle with finely chopped herbs.

The final stage is the preparation of the dressing. For "Nicoise" dressing is very typical of quality extra virgin olive oil, or, as they say, cold pressed, salt, black pepper and wine vinegar. We suggest replacing wine vinegar with balsamic: mix olive oil, balsamic, salt and pepper with a whisk. Pour the dressing over the salad on top, distributing it evenly over all the ingredients.

Nicoise is ready!
Enjoy your meal!