Niçoise Salad
Common ingredients in local dishes here include green beans, garlic, olives, anchovies and tomatoes and range from cuts of meat and poultry served with any combination of the aforementioned ingredients to the famed Niçoise salad that has become part and parcel of many of our lives.
According to tradition, this iconic salad also contains artichokes, tuna (most often tinned), hard-boiled eggs and cucumber, while sticklers insist that potatoes have no place in this particular salad bowl. But that was then...
Nowadays chefs are keen to add their own twist on things, celebrating the plethora of excellent ingredients increasingly available to them. Bastion of some of the freshest seafood in Cape Town, Kenneth McClarty of the Olympia Café in Kalk Bay is obsessive about a menu that serves only the best off erings from the sea that he can source. His take on tuna Niçoise has become something of a signature dish, thanks to his use of justseared fresh tuna which he serves as often as he can.
“We serve sushi-grade tuna for around five months of the year and if I can’t find any then I just won’t serve my Niçoise” he says.
His version of the classic teams a seared piece of tuna loin on a bed of greens, with a soft poached egg (“the yolk must be runny enough to act as a sauce”), capers (“only use the salted ones”), a generous dollop of garlic aïoli, anchovies (salted again), olives and, of course, green beans and tomatoes. Beautiful to look at and outstanding to eat, this summery salad is the ideal antidote to a season of overindulging. Light but filled with plenty of flavour-crammed mouthfuls, team yours with a crisp and cold white wine – McClarty recommends Constantia Uitsig White Blend – “ a straight Sauvignon Blanc is not powerful enough to stand up to the tuna,” he says.
NIÇOISE SALAD
Feeds one (generous portion)
or 2 shared
2 generous handfuls mixed lettuce
leaves
¼ cup blanched green beans
¼ cup cocktail tomatoes – halved
1 T Kalamata olives
1 t capers (salted and wiped of
salt according to taste)
¼ cup boiled new potatoes, cooled
2 anchovy fi llets (salted and wiped
of salt according to taste)
Soft-boiled (2½ minutes) egg – cooled
Maldon salt
Freshly ground black pepper
160-180g tuna steak (cut at least 2cm thick)
Toss leaves in vinaigrette. Add tomatoes, olives,
capers and green beans. Pile onto a plate. Place
the new potatoes around the salad. Top with a generous
dollop of aïoli, halved soft-boiled egg and the
anchovies. Place just-seared tuna steak on the top.
TUNA STEAK
Place an empty pan on high heat, and allow to get
white hot. Add a splash of olive oil. Sear salt and
pepper seasoned tuna for 45 seconds to a minute
on each side to ensure a good crust and pink meat.
GARLIC AÏOLI
1 egg yolk
½ cup olive oil
1 clove fresh, crushed garlic
Salt and pepper to taste
Optional: ¼ tsp wholegrain
mustard/avocado/wasabi
Add egg yolk to garlic in a blender (slow speed)
Add the salt and pepper and gradually add oil until a
homogenous consistency has been achieved.
