Nicoise Salad: Get Your Ahi On.

This is a true showstopper of a meal, perfect for a summer evening. There are two keys to this meal, that cannot be compromised.  The first is the ahi tuna, also referred to as sushi-grade. Meaning it's the good stuff. You can buy it from the fishmonger (and the guy who sold me this fish was so adorably earnest and sooooo into fish it almost made me emotional) and eat it right out of your hands, raw as anything, if you wish. But that creates kind of a grotesque image. My point is you can't cheap out here, if you want to do something a bit fantastic. Having said that, this salad will totally work with a good quality canned tuna, preferably the kind packed in olive oil...it just won't be as good as with the fresh stuff. It'll be something different.

The second key to success in this endeavour is you need to get yourself a really big, shallow platter. It's truly a beautiful salad, and you need something nice to serve it on. I purchased my big blue platter at a specialty store near my house, called Dollarama. It was a dollar. It's plastic. But it's perfect for this. Have you ever been to the Dollarama at Queen and O'hara, in Parkdale? It kicks ass. It's pretty much where all my dishes are from. No joke.

Salad ingredients, getting ready for their big debut.

The big debut.

Okay, so there's a bit of a splurge on the tuna. But you won't actually need that much, because you slice the tuna quite thin and you can stretch it. Plus, there is a lot going on in this salad, including other substantial ingredients like potatoes and hard-boiled eggs. I used just over a pound of tuna for 3 people, and I had another full serving (at least) left over. So a pound for four people will be perfect, certainly.

Instead of using anchovies directly in the salad, I put a significant hit of anchovy paste in the dressing. If you have good anchovies by all means use them. I just wasn't sure if all my dinner guests would be down, so I snuck in that flavour via the dressing.
The other most excellent part of this dish, besides its killer flavour, is you can make all of the components ahead of time, so all you have to do once guests arrive is sear the tuna, which takes about five minutes, max.

Nicoise Salad

1 pound of ahi tuna
1 tbsp of oil, for frying tuna     (don't use olive oil for this, stick with canola, or soya, or even peanut would probably be a good option)
1 pound of small new potatoes, or cut up large new potatoes, red or white
4 hard-boiled eggs, sliced into quarters       (I hard-boil my eggs in the following fashion:  place eggs in cold water, turn the heat up to max, let them boil at full throttle for a minute or two, and then take them off the heat - leave them in that water, with a lid on the pot, for about 20 minutes - presto, perfect hard-boiled eggs with little fuss and no gross grey ring around the yolk that you get when you boil them too long)
2 tomatoes, cut into wedges
2 handfuls of snap peas, or asparagus, or green beans, cooked briefly      (cook them for only a couple of minutes, and then pull them off the heat and either run cold water over them or place them in an ice bath to stop the cooking and preserve the vibrant green colour)
2 handfuls of olives of your choosing - black are more traditional, but who cares, use what kind you like
Arugula to lay everything on top of, and also to eat
Salt and pepper to taste

For the dressing:
juice of 1 lemon     (don't be weird and use the lemon juice from a bottle - just...don't)
1 tsp of dijon mustard
2 tbsp of chives, snipped or minced finely     (measuring chives seems ridiculous, just put a good palmful in there)
1-2 tbsp of anchovy paste     (this is an awesome ingredient, and provides body and a certain salty je ne sais quoi - oy - to dressings, don't be afraid to use a fairly heavy hand with it - I promise you it will not taste fishy in any way)
4-5 tbsp of olive oil
salt and pepper to taste

To assemble the salad, lay the arugula down on your platter. As you can see from the photo, I tried to get a bit creative in the presentation, and I think, frankly, I did a pretty great job. I just sort of went around the perimeter of the platter and placed half of each ingredient across the platter from each other, saving the middle for the tuna, who should not share centre stage.

To sear the tuna, take it out of the fridge about 15 minutes before go time, to let it warm up a bit. A cast iron pan is ideal for this but not necessary. Heat up the oil on max heat, and wait until the oil is hot hot hot before you put that tuna in there. The point is to get a really nice sear, and you can't do that if you jump the gun and put the tuna in a medium-hot pan. Salt and pepper both sides of your tuna. Once it's in the pan, leave it be for about three minutes or so. I think an overcooked piece of tuna is a heinous thing, so really watch your timing here. Flip her over, and leave it for another two minutes, max. Take it off the heat, wait a few minutes, and slice her up thinly. It should be bright pink and basically raw in the middle, with a nice sear on both sides.

To make the dressing, put all the ingredients in a small jar and shake it up. Then, and this is an important, often ignored step, taste it. It's really quite amazing what you can learn if you just taste things! Add more lemon if it needs brightening, more anchovy paste if you want the flavour to be deeper, more oil if it needs to loosen up a bit.

Lay your tuna on the arugula in the middle of the platter, and pour the dressing over the tuna and all of the other ingredients. Provide a pair of tongs, and let the guests serve themselves. This is really a stunner, and so low-maintenance if you have some peeps over.

Seriously, how hot does that tuna look.

Potato Chip Frittata: Healthy, But Not!

I just returned from an awesome vacation out west. Spent time in Vancouver, and a handful of glorious days in Ucluelet. Go to Ucluelet. Don't hesitate. Serious. Vancouver was wonderful and beautiful...you walk, you bike, you look at mountains and ocean. And then you come back to Toronto, if you live here like me, and you're happy to be back in the edginess. No one in Vancouver seems to do anything bad (I mean, except for rioting). No one even stays up late! Anyway, I ate a lot of potato chips while I was away, just 'cause I could. Whatevs, I went for like 18 bike rides and 20 hikes.

My first day back to Toronto I had a couple of lovely people over for dinner, and I had eggs, and I wanted to do a frittata. Getting comfortable with the frittata is key for dinner parties, in my humble opinion. It's pure dead brilliant, as the Scots say. Eggs are key, so stop here if you hate them. But hating eggs is crazy talk. You make the frittata ahead of time, throw in a salad and some bread, and blammo, dinner.

FYI, this is a photo of sea lions off Ucluelet, not a frittata.
But look how cute they are.

The recipe, involving predominantly the aforementioned potato chips and eggs, is from a glorious, luscious cookbook called Around My French Table, by Dorie Greenspan. She rules. And so does this cookbook. She calls this a 'wink' recipe, something developed by those saucy French to get a bit playful with the traditional Spanish recipe for potato tortilla. Try serving it to your health nut friends who never eat potato chips, and then tell them after they've eaten it.

Are people getting tired of these cutting board shots?

Potato Chip Frittata
From Around My French Table, by Dorie Greenspan


4 eggs
3 green onions, sliced finely, or a small onion, treated the same
2 cloves of garlic, minced
1/4 cup of herbs of your choosing     (I used cilantro and parsley, but other delicious choices would be chives, or basil, or dill might even be nice)
1 tbsp of oil, canola or olive
1/3 of a big bag of potato chips    (I used kettle chips, salt and pepper flavoured - but here's where you can get crazy: why not try making it with dill pickle, hmmm? Or sour cream and onion? Just don't use all-dressed - they're gross)

So here's what you do. Set your oven to broil, and move your oven rack up so it's pretty close to the actual broiler, but not crazy close. Dorie gives you an actual amount of inches the pan should be from the broiler but I found that too much work. Just make sure your rack is pretty close, but not as close as it can get, you feel me?

Crush the shit out of those potato chips with your hands, in a bowl big enough to fit the eggs after. Really crush the chips up, so that they're in little bits. In another bowl, crack in your four eggs, and then add the garlic, herbs, and onion. Then whisk that all up. Add the whisked egg action into the potato chip bowl, and mix it all up well. Heat up the oil over medium heat in a smallish frying pan (I was a bit concerned about using my small frying pan but it totally worked, it's only four eggs after all). The pan needs to be able to go into the oven, so cast iron is ideal. If you have a pan whose handle won't go in the oven, you can wrap that handle in foil and proceed.

Once the oil gets a bit hot, pour in your egg/potato chip mixture, then turn the heat to minimum. Let it set for a couple of minutes. Don't do what I did and get nervous and leave it too long thinking it wasn't set yet. Just wait a little bit (about three minutes or so), and run a spatula around the edge. If the edge keeps together in your spatula go-around, pop your pan in the oven, and broil for another few minutes. Keep a good eye on this puppy, as it won't take long for everything to set up good. Take her out of the oven, slide it out of the pan, and place on a cutting board or similar to serve.

The frittata tastes best at room temperature, which is why it's so ideal for the dinner parties. You could make it even the day before and be all easy breezy re your main course when your friends arrive. You've got this covered, yeah?

"It tastes healthy, but it's not!"
- dinner party guest