Lunch Menu Highlight – Salad Niçoise
Wed, Oct 22, 2008
Lunch is one of my favorite meals, especially here in San Diego. I am, as many know not a big breakfast eater and working late as I do lunch is (usually) my first meal of the day, unless you count coffee as one. I have designed the lunch menu at the Glass Door around some of my old time favorites, and am very excited to start working on bringing some new and interesting dishes to a meal that many of us just write off. I will be posting these new dishes here but first I would like to take a minute (and a blog post) to discuss one of my all time favorite salade composee, Salade niçoise.
Salade niçoise is probably the most famous of all of the traditional french composed salads. Originating in Nice France, Salade niçoise has over time accrued a world wide following and seems to be on everyone’s menu here in California…
When a dish becomes popular or standardized, many chef’s (this one included) get bored and want to push their creativity. This usually means that dishes, once perfect in their original incarnation are morphed into something that sometimes just doesn’t work. Ingredients get mishmashed or flavors blurred beyond anyone’s comprehension. I often pair regional flavors and textures together to find that creative edge, but on this salad I left well enough alone.
Memories of this salad go back to my days in NorCal. My friend and fellow chef John (who now works for Google of all companies) used to run Viognier in San Mateo and worked with Gary Danko at the Ritz. His version of this classic salad was identical to mine, with the addition of french fingerling potatoes. I lived about 4 blocks from his restaurant so I would stop by from time to time and snack on this salad, with a nice glass of wine. Viognier was atop Draeger’s Market and while offering no view to speak of did offer up some great food. This was for me, the perfect place to escape on my day off and for a couple of hours disappear.
With these lazy lunches in mind I have designed the Glass Door’s version of this salad sans lettuce. French composed salads do not have lettuce, but it seems that over the years lettuce has worked it way into this great dish. A little more about this here…
Our Salade niçoise is composed of the following ingredients with, of course your choice of dressing (or a lemon wedge as the chef likes it 
,
Bluefin tuna, pan seared
Kalmata, Niçoise and Picholine olives with roasted garlic cloves
Local tomatoes from Oceanside CA
Organic, free range chicken egg
Haircot verts, pan roasted with garlic and a touch of white wine
This salad is perfect for those Santa Ana days of fall we here in San Diego are coming into or just about anyone when the rains are away and the sun is shining bright.
Stop by and explore our lunch menu, grab a glass of wine, perhaps this salad, check out the view of the bay and let a couple of hours drift by, I hear it is good for your soul.
Best,
chefRob
Tags: food photography, french food, Salad Niçoise
I’d really appreciate a reply. My husband, B&SIL and other French expats say that the original Salad Nicoise included rice from the Camarague. Hope I spelled that right. I’ve visited the area
. Yet, I can’t seem to find a recipe from a N.A. site that includes rice (nor in Julia Child’s first cookbook, which is now dilapadated). I just got back from France where I saw it served with rice and was really surprised. I’ve seen many recipes that call for potatoes, however.
Can you possibly confirm the rice, as opposed to potato, ingredient? TIA
Penny
Penny,
Thanks for the comment and offering me the chance to some detective work. In my professional career I have not seen a Nicoise served with rice, nor have I ever (that I remember) seen a recipe for one. This salad has to be one of the most bastardized recipes in the world, and everyone thinks that they know the real deal, without ever seeing it first hand and in country.
Charles, a long time friend and chef is currently in Nice. I was waiting to reply to you until he returned to Nice (he works on Yachts) so he could do some chef “sleuthing” to see what the truth is, as all my search queries returned nada. I finally got an answer via Facebook from Charles and this is what he said…
“so far yes on the rice but no confirmation of the type or reason why they interchanged rice for potato
get back to you”
So we have confirmation that rice is used on the salad from Nice, or Salade Nicoise. Camarague rice is a red rice from the southern part of France so (I would think) it is safe to say that this is the type used. When I hear, or if he can find out why and when the rice/potato swap occurred I’ll post an update and let you know.
Thanks again for the comment and question, I have had a lot of fun digging around and trying to find the answer for you.
cheers!
chefRob
chefRob, I am somewhat of a minimalist and lover of old French popular recipes, and the oldest one I have for une Niçoise is this: tomatoes, cébettes,(a type of spring onions), anchovies, fresh favas primeur,(later replaced by green beans), garlic’pilé’in a mortar and mixed generously with olive oil, and local olives. And that’s it! It was a poor laborer’s lunch. Any Niçoise recipe that uses cooked vegs or any type of lettuce (any lettuce, though if you must have it prefer romaine leaves, shredded by hand, or maybe roquette) may be delicious but it is a perversion of the original. The tomato was introduced in Provence by way of Naples, where it was introduced by the Spaniards who ruled the ‘Royaume de Naples’around the 1600′s. It grew like a weed, and was easy and cheap to produce just about everywhere in Provence. Rice was also cultivated in Provence, specially Camargue, from the time of King Henri IV, but not extensively until the mid-1800′s. But it was much cheaper there than the ‘froment’ (Flour) made from wheat which had to be brought from the Beauce and other places. It certainly served as a welcome alternative staple, as potatoes were not yet well known. The potatoes were cheaper and much less labor intensive to produce, and I surmise they took over from rice for this reason and the proximity of producers closer to Paris. I hope this helps, and feel free to follow up if you wish!
best regards,
eric
Sorry Rob, I mispelled my name in the previous comment…