Salad Nicoise

This beautiful French salad is a specialty of the region of Nice in France. Laura Calder from "French Food at Home" refers this salad to go with garlic (in dressing), olives, anchovies and tomatoes as a couples of must-have ingredients.

What this crowd-pleasing salad takes is just time to prepare ingredients separately in advance. Dress them individually and set it up presentably.

(serves 4)
Ingredients:
For Salad:
1 medium head of red leaf lettuce or butter lettuce, leaves washed and separated
1 small can tuna
4 hard-boiled eggs, wedged
5 small new red potatoes, washed and halved

1/2 cup green and black pitted olives
1 cup cheery tomatoes, halved
1 small red onion, sliced

For Dressing:
half lemon juice
3/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 small shallot, minced
2 garlic
1 tbsp thyme, minced
1 tbsp oregano, minced
1 tsp honey
1 tsp Dijon mustard
1 tsp anchovy paste
salt and pepper to taste

Directions:

Whisk all dressing ingredients. Set aside.

Bring potatoes and cold water to boil in a large pot. Cook until tender, around 7 mins. Remove potatoes from pot, and toss with 2 tbsp of dressing. Set aside.

Coat lettuce with dressing. Place lettuce bed on a large salad plate.

Put tuna on the center of the lettuce bed. Place egg wedges next to tuna.

Individually dress other salad ingredients, and arrange onto the lettuce bed surrounding the tuna.

Sprinkle eggs and tuna with remaining dressing. Serve.