Salade Niçoise

Salade Niçoise?

The make-up of many famous dishes is a highly personal thing, often rooted in childhood. The dishes that we grew up with are the canonical versions of those dishes and any deviation from those dishes can inspire legions to argue, sometimes vociferously and vehemently. This is especially true for a dish also tied to the region of our birth. Those who would trample our heritage are our enemies.

I've often blogged about how small land wars have been fought over whose grandmother's recipe for various dishes is the One True Version. You can hear the childish taunts. "My Nonna's ragù is better than yours." "My Oma's paprikash is the best."

In France, one of these contentious dishes is the humble Salade Niçoise, which you may or may not see in the photo above depending on your idea of what constitutes such a salad. The minority position in this squabble is held by the "Cercle de la Capelina d’Or," a tiny but vociferous Niçois preservationist group. The majority position belongs to the rest of us who enjoy and make the salad.

Members of the Cercle, who certify restaurants in Nice as authentically Niçois, argue quixotically that a true version of this world famous salad may not contain cooked vegetables (especially green beans and potatoes) and must not contain vinegar. This stance likely is rooted in cuisine pauvre, peasant cooking, in which the dish probably derived from a plate of ripe tomatoes and anchovies, doused in olive oil.

For the rest of us, a Salade Niçoise contains blanched green beans, boiled potatoes, and the whole is dressed with a classic vinaigrette.

How did we arrive at this divide over beans and potatoes?

Blame the schism on Auguste Escoffier, the so-called king of chefs and the chef of kings. Escoffier codified modern French cooking in writing the primary and seminal textbook on professional cooking, Le Guide Culinaire, in 1903. A measure of this book's importance: it is still in print and still in use today as a culinary textbook and kitchen reference.

1903 also saw publication of another cookbook called La Cuisine à Nice by Henri Heyraud, whose recipes in part influence the Cercle. While the Escoffier book is still in print and in use, Heyraud's oeuvre is extremely rare and will cost several hundred dollars to purchase.

Escoffier included both cooked green beans and potatoes in his salad, the whole dressed with oil and vinegar. Heyraud did not include the beans or potatoes, opting only for raw vegetables (red peppers and artichokes) but his salad was dressed with vinaigrette, something that the Cercle seems to have conveniently overlooked in its ban on vinegar.

Back then in the early part of the 20th century, just as it is now in the social media era of the 21st, influencers and their followers mattered. While Heyraud is largely forgotten, thanks to Le Guide Culinaire, Escoffier's influence extends to many generations of chefs, both directly and indirectly.

Directly, Escoffier trained hundreds of chefs and cooks in his days at the Savoy, Ritz, and Carlton hotels, bastions of fine dining. Indirectly, Escoffier's recipe has been passed down to later authors who works were also influential.

For example, at least two generations of American chefs, primarily those who are teaching now, took their cues from the 1961 groundbreaking English-language treatise on French cooking Mastering the Art of French Cooking by Simone Beck, Louisette Bertholle, and Julia Child. The salad in Mastering derived from Escoffier and I count myself among those who learned it in those pages. In turn, I passed my salad along to many of my chefs and cooks before I retired. Escoffier's influence continues, generation over generation, sad to say for the preservationists.

While the Cercle's promotion and preservation of la vraie cuisine niçoise is admirable and even laudable, the rest of the world has voted against them in the matter of this particular salad. But no matter which camp you fall into, you must admit that a well made Salade Niçoise is one of the gems of summer and the south of France, potatoes and beans or no.

My version varies with the ingredients on hand, but must include tomatoes, green beans (preferably the tiny haricots filets), potatoes, olives, hard boiled eggs, and either tuna or anchovies, with my preference going to anchovies when I can get them. Lettuce never appears in my version. I would add baby artichokes if I could find them.

I dress the fish, green beans, potatoes, and artichokes in a classic shallot vinaigrette made with white wine vinegar, extra virgin olive oil, minced shallots, and a touch each of mustard and salt. 

I leave you with some thoughts on a key component of the salad, hard boiled eggs, of which I have had a great many terrible versions in my career versus far fewer brilliant ones. They are so easy to do that they should be spot on every time, no matter the cook.

Hard Boiled Eggs

I'm not a huge fan of boiled eggs. I ate way too many hard cooked eggs as a child—thanks Mom!—and to this day can get queasy in their presence. As a result I am overly picky about hard boiled eggs.

If you like rock hard yolks with a green ring around them, you can stop reading here. If you like eggs that are set but slightly creamy in the middle, like those in the photo above, read on.

At the restaurant, we used massive Rhode Island Red eggs that are even bigger than commercially available jumbo graded eggs. Post-restaurant, I have since adapted my timing for jumbo eggs. If you are using large eggs or smaller, you'll need to reduce the cook time.

In a sauce pan, cover the eggs with a good inch of cold water. Place on a high flame. As soon as the water comes to a rapid, rolling boil, turn off the flame. Cover the pot. Set the timer for 8 minutes. When the timer goes off, immediately chill the eggs in cold water until they are cold to touch. Done.

You can adjust the timing for more or less done eggs as you prefer.