Things you can do with boiled eggs...My favourite...Salad nicoise

SALAD NICOISE

I can honestly say that if i were to have a last meal, this would easily be top of the list. Obviously of French origin, the salad nicoise is a staple on most menus in the UK, but seems to be sadly lacking in South Africa. I find this odd as South Africa easily has the best fresh produce in the world and with our sunny climate, I am surprised more restaurants have not evolved their menus to accommodate this dish. It is the perfect dish to serve guests and should be accompanied by some crusty fresh bread. It is so divinely colourful on the plate and can be adjusted to suit as many people as you need to serve quite easily.

It is simple to prepare, fresh, tasty, wholesome and filling. This is what you will need for your nicoise and then I will tell you how you can play about with the flavours.

This recipe serves 3 people

10 small new potatoes
500 grams of french beans topped and tailed (this means you cut the scraggily bits at the top and the bottom off)
10 Rosa Tomatoes quartered
Half a bag of mixed lettuce leaves
1/4 of a red onion finely sliced
15 calamata olives
2 generous tablespoons of capers
3 medium boiled eggs
2 tins of solid meat tuna
5 Sprigs of Coriander

For the dressing:
1 heaped teaspoon of grain mustard
Juice of half a lemon
2 tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil
half a teaspoon of soya sauce
1 tablespoon of balsamic vinegar
a splash of water

Method:
Wash your potatoes and boil the till soft. Take off the heat and let them cool after running them under cold water. We'll come back to them later.

Bring a pot of water to the boil and add your top and tailed beans. Boil them for about6 minutes only. You want them to be crunchy and sweet, not brown and soggy. As soon as thy have boiled. Drain them and plunge them into a sink filled with cold water and ice - this will shock them into retaining their colour. leave them in there for 2 minutes and place them in your serving dish.

Add your quartered Rosa tomatoes and your fine sliced red onion to your beans and toss.

Ditto the lettuce leaves and toss.

Add your olives and capers and toss.

Drain your tinned tuna well and add the tuna to the top of your bean, tomato and onion mix.

Go back to your potatoes and halve them, placing them carefully on the top of the tuna for presentation sake.

NOW FOR THE DRESSING

Very simple. Throw all the ingredients into a jar and shake!
Pour over your salad.

Chop up your coriander, sprinkle on top and serve. Voila! heaven in a dish.

Now this is not necessarily the traditional way of preparing a salad nicoise but it is how I like it served...but this is where you play around with it until you find your own favourite mix of flavours.

Capers are very much a love or hate thing, so if capers make you recoil in disgust, substitute with a tinned and drained kidney beans or chick peas. Just because a recipe states 'you must use this or you must use that' does not mean you can't adapt it to suit your tastes.

How about swapping the new potatoes for roasted and sliced sweet potatoes? (you simply prick them with a fork a few times, whack them into some tin foil and throw them into the oven on 180 for an hour).

Swap the coriander for chopped parsley or finely chopped thyme (so fragrant and so delicious)

Alternate the tuna for hot smoked trout or tinned salmon (tinned salmon is DELICIOUS and so underrated. It is also full of omega 3's and calcium)

I have not added salt and pepper to this recipe as you can add your salt to taste at the table - my golden rule is that you can add salt but you can't take it away.

So there it is - your first recipe and the best one at that. And something I will be making in my new kitchen as I will literally have a pot, a knife a fork and a tin opner. Oh the fun.