We did not pull this name outta nowhere: The Frogs sometimes refer to their national salad as Insalata Nizzarda, more popularly known as the nicoise. The mother of all deconstructed salads. The Foucault of lettuce. With its cold, charred peppers, slim haricot vert, plump, briny olives. plus a starch and a protein to boot. We’re huge fans of composed salads if you couldn’t tell.
So we pulled one of the so-so ingredients out of this nicoise (potato)and used it instead as a vessel to make it party food. A familiar scheme at this point. We piped in a Dijon mustard and filled the potato with a small-chop mix of nicoise olives, shallots, roasted red bells, capers and thyme dressed lightly with, olive oil, white balsamic and ripped tarragon. And on top, for garnish, one thin green bean. The result is a room tempish salad bite that hits all the nizz notes without being obvious.
(Makes 10-12)
4 small potatoes
4 green beans
2 red bell peppers
1/4 cup Nicoise olives
2 shallots, peeled
1 Tbs. capers
4 sprigs thyme
1 Tbs. olive oil
1 tsp. white balsamic
2 sprigs tarragon
1 Tbs. Dijon mustard
Salt and pepper to taste
1. Make your potatoes into cups. Cut the rounded curve off of all sides of each, so you have a potato rectangle, and lay on its side. Then slice into three equal pieces, the width of a small sushi roll. With a teaspoon, spoon out the middle.
2. Take all of your potato cups and put ’em in a saucepan, fill it with warm water and place on high heat. Toss in a tsp. of salt. When the water hits a rapid boil, the potatoes should be done. Fork one to be sure. Before removing, toss in your green beans for 1 minute just to blanche. Remove all and drain, gently. Rinse with cold water.
3. Mix your chopped salad. First char your peppers and de-skin ’em. Dice all the fixings smaller than seems necessary (it will need to be fine to fit into your petite potato cup) and dress with oil and vinegar and herbs. Let sit for at least 20 minutes to marry the flavors. Meanwhile, pre-heat the oven to 350 degrees.
4. On a lightly oiled sheet pan, lay out your potatoes. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and roast for about 12 minutes or until slightly brown. Remove and let cool.
5. Spoon, or pipe using a pastry bag, a touch of Dijon to each potato. Then cram a Tbs. of filling into the tater. Garnish with a slice of halved green bean.
Beverage: Saison Dupont’s Avril
Soundtrack: Stereolab’s Refried Ectoplasm
