Tuna nicoise salad

I'll take it straight out of the oven and say it next. Now that I’ve started to make a tuna nicoise salad with tuna steak rather than tinned tuna, I’m never going to go back! I used to have tuna nicoise salad fairly regularly, but it had never occurred to me to use the proper stuff.

I regularly spend my free time flicking through my cook books looking for inspiration and this one had been staring me in the face for years. I think that when I do this I’m literally just flicking the pages and never taking any of it in!

Now, there is a time and a place for a tin of tuna, and this most certainly isn’t the place. You’d actually be surprised at how far you can make a tuna steak go.  The thing with making a salad, you can use whatever quantities of the ingredients as you like. If you’re on a budget and need to cut back on the tuna steak then add some more potatoes, tomatoes, or green beans, whatever takes your fancy really.

Serves 4 

Ingredients

• 400g tuna steak
• 200g green beans
• 8 new potatoes
• 200g cos/romaine lettuce, chopped
• 4 tomatoes, chopped
• 8 radishes, quartered
• handful of pitted black olives
• 100ml good extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tbsp good red wine vinegar
• 2 tbsp lemon juice
• salt and pepper

1. The first thing that you need to do here is chop the tuna steak up into 1.5 cm cubes. Season well and fry to your liking in a little olive oil in a frying pan over a medium heat. Once, remove from heat and set aside after taking it out of the fire.
2. Top and tail the green beans and boil over a medium heat for 4-5 minutes. Drain and set aside until needed.
3. Chop the potatoes into quarters and boil over a medium heat for 8-10 minutes. When cooked, set aside.
4. To make the dressing, mix together the extra virgin olive oil, red wine vinegar, lemon juice and a little salt and pepper.
5. Now its time to piece it all together. You can plate it up into individual portions but I prefer to make one giant platter and let everyone help themselves. Scatter the lettuce onto the platter and then sprinkle over the beans, potatoes, tomatoes radishes and olives. Finish by scattering the tuna chunks over the top and pouring the dressing over the finished salad.