Niceoise salad and memories of kindness

Here's another salad recipe but this time it doesn't come with a side order of complaints about the Irish weather. (Lest you think this means the weather has improved here on the Dingle Peninsula; it's done no such thing. We may have spent the past few weeks crossing our fingers for an Indian summer but those clouds have remained resolutely in our skies.)

No, this salad comes with a more personal story...

My partner Richard is quite a bit older than I am and when we first got together, there was some disapproval from our family and friends. With this as background information, you'll understand why I felt nervous the first time I met Richard's mother. By that stage, she was an old lady in her late seventies and I thought that if anyone were going to react in a judgemental way to our age difference, it was going to be her.

How wrong I was. I came to see that Anne was someone who prized love above all else in this world. She immediately saw and understood the strength of the love we shared. Her eyes shone with happiness for her son and from that moment on, she welcomed me warmly into her family.

She prepared a Niceoise salad for us to eat on the evening of that first visit. It was the first time I'd ever tasted this clever combination of green beans, tuna, anchovies, black olives and eggs but it definitely wasn't the last. It's become one of my go-to recipes for simple suppers ever since.

Anne died in 2007 but whenever I make this salad, I think of her and how kind she was to me on our first meeting.

My memory of Anne Smallwood's Niceoise Salad
This recipe feeds two greedy adults (with some leftovers for lunch the following day). Like all salad recipes, it's pretty adaptable. You can add more or less of any of the ingredients, according to your own preference.

400g small baby potatoes

250g green beans

1 medium-sized green pepper

15 black olives, the small puckered ones are best for flavour

250g tuna in olive oil, brine or water

8 anchovies

4 eggs

3 tablespoons olive oil

1 tablespoon cider vinegar

1 teaspoon honey

1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

A pinch of salt

• Wash the potatoes and place in a saucepan. Sprinkle with salt and cover with boiling water. Simmer over a medium heat until a knife passes through the potatoes with ease. This should take between 15 and 20 minutes, depending on the size of your potatoes. Strain out the water and set aside to cool.
• Prepare your other ingredients while you're waiting for the potatoes. 
• Top and tail the beans and then cut them in half.
• Place them in a saucepan and sprinkle with salt. Add a centimetre or two of boiling water to the pan. Cover with a lid and simmer the beans over a medium to high heat for four minutes or until they are tender but still retain a slight bite.
• Cut the top off the pepper and scoop out the seeds and pith inside. Cut the flesh into bite-sized pieces.
• Remove the pits from the olives and cut them in half.
• Place the eggs in a small saucepan. Cover them with boiling water and simmer over a medium heat for seven minutes. Then place the saucepan in your sink and run cold water over the eggs until they become cool enough to handle. Set aside until it's time for assembly.
• Make the dressing by adding the olive oil, cider vinegar, honey, mustard and salt to a jam jar, screwing on the lid and shaking the jar vigorously until all the ingredients have combined.
• Your potatoes ought to have cooked at this stage. You could cut them in three and add them to the salad as they are but I like to fry them in a little olive oil to give them crispy edges. Simply heat a tablespoon of olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Add your potato slices and a sprinkling of salt. Wait for a golden crispy skin to develop before turning each slice over and doing the same again.
• It's time for assembly. Add the beans, potatoes, tuna, olives and green pepper to a salad bowl. Toss together until they are well combined.
• Peel the eggs by tapping them gently against a chopping board or counter top until cracks appear in the shell. Carefully peel the shell off the egg and cut each egg into quarters. Arrange the eggs and anchovies on top of the salad.
• It's up to you whether you dress the salad before it is served or not. I usually serve the dressing alongside and allow everyone to add as much or as little as they like.

The sun has gone AWOL - this calls for an emergency panzanella salad

This summer has been a little too Irish for my liking. I know it's supposed to rain in this country but does it have to rain so much that we've only been able to have dinner outside three times in the past three months?
I know we're not supposed to swelter under the sun either but did July really have to be one of the coldest on record? Or did it have to be the case that I never once took a walk on the beach without bringing along a fleece-lined jacket for fear of encountering biting Arctic winds?

This is what my walks have looked like this summer. Nice, I know, but where's the sunshine?

This weather has had consequences. Not only is everyone in Ireland at risk of vitamin D deficiency, we've all started to feel grouchy too. We need some sunshine!

I'm not a miracle worker. I can't compel the sun to shine on Ireland. Nor can this recipe promise to make up for our lack of sunshine. All I can do is assure you that its ripe tomatoes, charred red peppers, wrinkled black olives, salty anchovies and heady fragrance of basil will look, smell and taste just like summer on a plate.

Sharon's thrown-together take on a panzanella salad
The following quantities serve two adults. 
Feel free to adjust according to your own taste. If, for example, you don't like anchovies, just leave them out. The salad will still be full of flavour. It may however need a pinch of salt. 

200g of stale sourdough bread (or any other stale bread you've got lying around)
2 medium-sized red peppers
1 tablespoon olive oil
14 plum tomatoes
6 large sun-dried tomatoes
12 or so wrinkled black olives
6 anchovies 
6 large basil leaves
Salt and freshly-ground pepper 

• Pre-heat your oven to 200C/400F.
• Wash the peppers, place them on a baking tray and put them in the oven for 25 minutes. Set a timer for 15 minutes so you can use the oven to toast your croutons for the last ten minutes of cooking time.
• Remove the crust from the bread and chop what remains into chunks measuring approximately 1.5cm squared. (Don't worry too much about accuracy. This is a rough and ready salad.)
• Pour a tablespoon of olive oil onto a baking tray, tilting the tray so that the oil covers the entire base. Bung in the croutons. Toss them in the oil and give them a liberal sprinkling of salt and pepper.
• Your timer should have gone off by now. Place the croutons in the oven and bake for ten minutes. By then, you should have crunchy croutons that still retain a satisfyingly chewy texture in the middle. Your peppers should be ready too - charred on the outside with yielding flesh underneath. Set both the croutons and peppers aside to cool and turn off your oven.
• All that remains to do is chop up your remaining ingredients and add them to your salad bowl. Chop the tomatoes into quarters. 
• Roughly chop the sun-dried tomatoes.
• Remove the pits from the olives and cut them in half.
• Roughly chop the anchovies.
• Tear up the basil.
• Peel the charred skin off the peppers and roughly chop the flesh.
• Add all of these ingredients to a salad bowl, along with the croutons.
• Add at least half a teaspoon of pepper (about six twists of a pepper grinder) to the salad. 
• Use your hands or some salad servers to make sure that all of the ingredients are well combined.
• Taste and adjust the seasoning to your liking. Depending on the quality of your ingredients, you may need more pepper, a touch of salt or a few more basil leaves. (If you like olive oil, you can drizzle some over the salad. Personally, I don't think it needs it.)

{I know that, like the sunshine, I too have been absent from this blog. My apologies. I hope to check in here on a much more regular basis from now on. In the meantime, I wish you sunshine!}

It's simple. It's seasonal. It's salad.

Sometimes all you want is something simple. 

Something fresh.

Something that has clean and contrasting flavours and textures.

Something like this seasonal salad.

Chicory, apple and walnut salad with an apple cider vinegar dressing
Serves one as a main or two as a side dish

1 head chicory, cut into 1cm slices

1/2 apple, cored and thinly sliced (I prefer something sweet yet sharp such as the Granny Smith variety)

1/3 cup or 30g walnuts 

Dressing:

1/2 teaspoon Dijon mustard

1/2 teaspoon runny honey

A small pinch of salt

1 tablespoon apple cider vinegar

3 tablespoons walnut oil

• Place the mustard, honey and salt in a jam jar and mix together with a fork or small whisk.
• Add the vinegar and oil. Put the lid on the jar and shake until the dressing has combined.
• Core and slice the apple and place in a salad bowl.
• Cut the chicory into 1cm wide slices and add to the bowl.
• Crumble the walnuts on top of the apple and chicory.
• Toss these ingredients with half of the dressing. You can add more at the table or save what is left over for another seasonal salad.

Enjoy!

 


.