A Nicoise (pronounced Ni-Suaz) Salad originally comes for the Nice region of France and sometimes is more often referred to as the Salad Nicoise. Although a truly authentic version of this salad contains mainly raw ingredients (except for the eggs and anchovy fillets), there are some restaurants now who like to include other ingredients into their recipes. Some restaurants are now beginning to add pasta or potatoes or cheese, rice or cooked vegetables into theirs.

But the real beauty of this salad is that not only is relatively easy to prepare and make but the way in which the ingredients are presented. Not only does it contain lots of color and texture but it is full of flavors which combine well together. Below we list the ingredients as well as provide step by step instructions so that you can have a go at making this particular salad for yourself.

The ingredients you will need in order to make a Salad Nicoise to serve four people are as follows:- 1. 10 large and ripe tomatoes 2. 1 clove of garlic 3. 1 large cucumber 4. 1 green and one red pepper 5. 6 spring onions 6. 12 anchovy fillets which are in olive oil 7. 125g of black olives 8. 4 eggs that have been hard boiled 9. 90ml of olive oil (extra virgin is best) 10. 1 tablespoon of red wine vinegar 11. Juice of one lemon 12. Assorted salad leaves (cos, rocket etc) plus a small amount of fresh Basil. Now let us go through the steps you will need to take in order to make your Salad Nicoise.

Step 1 – You should take the tomatoes and cut them into six pieces each and then put this on a dish before sprinkling with a little salt. Doing this will help to remove some of the excess juices in the tomatoes which could cause the salad to become soggy and limp. Whilst you are preparing the tomatoes it is good idea to also get the eggs ready. In order to get good hard boiled eggs you should aim to leave them in the boiling water for around 5 minutes.

Step 2 – Now take the cucumber and cut this in half along the entire length of it. Once cut in half you now need to scoop out as many of the seeds inside then you can slice up the cucumber. However you should not either peel the cucumber of slice it too thinly. Then after preparing the cucumber you can move on to preparing the peppers and the spring onions. Both of the peppers and spring onions should be very thinly sliced.

Step 3 – Take the garlic clove remove the outer layer and then cut this in half and rub them around the inside of your salad bowl. If you are able to use a wooden bowl for placing the salad in.

Step 4 – As soon as you are ready to serve the salad, take your salad leave and lay these over the base of the bowl. The tomatoes that you left to drain can now be used and laid on top of the leaves along with the hard boiled eggs, which have been cut, into quarters. Then onto this, you need to place the peppers, spring onions and cucumber, as well as the anchovy fillets, which should have been drained. Then over the top, you scatter the olives.

Step 5 – The final thing you need to do before you can serve the Salad Nicoise to family or guests is make the dressing. In order to do this you take the lemon juice, olive oil and red wine vinegar and place in a bowl or jar before adding a small amount of freshly ground black pepper and salt to season. Once all the ingredients are together mix until well combined and then very slowly drizzle it over the salad. Finally take the fresh basil leaves and tear them up into pieces and sprinkle over the top of the salad. It really is that simple to make a great tasting Nicoise Salad.

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