Connie’s Salade Niçoise

Connie's Photo of Her Salade

Summer is almost over—but we’re still surrounded by much of its lovely produce. This classic salad recipe comes from my friend Connie MacDonald via her sister Amy. (Thank you, Connie and Amy!)

Connie’s instructions call for tossing the entire salad together. When I made it I had fewer people than it serves so I ended up plating all the ingredients separately and letting my guests help themselves. That way, the leftovers could be combined again the next day.

However you mix it, the salad gives you a lovely way to say farewell to summer’s bounty. And it gives me a delicious way to remember my late mother, who adored Salade Niçoise.

She always included a little hard-boiled egg in her Salade so I did so as well (as you can see in the photo of my version). It’s not obligatory, however!

Salade Niçoise à la Constance

Ingredients:

for the salad:

8 small red potatoes
1-1/2 pounds French (or any good, fresh) green beans
1 cup Greek olives
1/2 red onion
1 pint cherry tomatoes
a couple of big handsful of Mesclun greens (3 to 4 cups)
about 1 pound tuna—canned, in packets, or fresh (if it’s fresh you should obviously quickly cook it before using it!)

for the Lemon Vinaigrette (more or less to your taste)

1/4 cup freshly squeezed lemon juice
1/2 cup olive oil
2 teaspoons salt
2 teaspoons pepper
2 teaspoons garlic powder (Tinky used 1 fresh garlic clove, minced)
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard

Instructions:

Boil the potatoes. While they are cooking to al dente, steam green beans. Set aside to cool to room temperature.

Dice the olives and onion. Set them aside separately.

Whisk together the vinaigrette.

Wash the tomatoes and the salad greens and set them aside. “By this point,” says Connie, “your counter top looks like an awesome Provençal cooking show with many bowls full of colorful veggies. You can practically feel your hair grow in anticipation of the impending nutritive boost.”

When the potatoes are cooked, drain them and let them cool until you can safely handle them. Slice them into 1/4-inch-thick slices and toss the warm potatoes with half of the vinaigrette. (I, Tinky, had the tiniest potatoes in the world so many of them didn’t need slicing.)

Find a really big bowl, toss and mix in all the ingredients, and cover them with the remaining vinaigrette. Toss gently, but thoroughly.

Turn the salad out onto a large platter and serve with fresh croissants.

“T.D.F. (to die for),” says Connie. The girl has a point. Serves 8 to 10 generously.

A Plate with My Unmixed Version of the Salade

Finally … in case you’re not among those I have inundated with the links to my latest TV appearance, here they are! On Friday I made two dishes on the program “Mass Appeal” for World Alzheimer’s Month: Broccoli and Apple Salad and Apple Crumble.

Happy Anniversary to Me!

Or rather to this blog. And to its faithful readers.

On September 3, 2008, In Our Grandmothers’ Kitchens first appeared on the internet. I thought the blog might serve as my passport to fame.

It hasn’t quite done that …. yet. It has attracted a moderate following, however, and it has given me a forum in which to develop some of my favorite ideas and recipes.

My most popular posts have been the ones about TV and Film History (particularly anything to do with “I Love Lucy”!), followed by those that dwell on two of my favorite foods, rhubarb and asparagus.

In the coming year, I hope to use some of my blog posts in my next book. And I hope my audience will continue to grow. Please let me know what you like about the blog, what you don’t like, and what you’d like to see me do!

In case you haven’t been following me from the start, I’m reprinting my very first post here. I hope to make the tasty scones again today—and to contemplate the universe, something we all need to do from time to time.

As I contemplate, I’ll enjoy this (almost) autumnal anniversary. It’s fitting that the Jewish New Year falls in September, a month in which it seems natural to look both backward and forward. Thank you all for reading….

Posted on 3 September 2008:

Apples and the Universe

Photo Courtesy of Susan Hagen

If you wish to make an apple pie from scratch, you must first invent the universe.

So said the late astronomer Carl Sagan on the PBS television series Cosmos.

Sagan was one of the great writers of popular science for a reason. He knew how to phrase complicated truths about human existence in down-to-earth ways.

To him, of course, the important noun in his sentence was the universe. To me (because I’m an ordinary person and a cook), it’s the apple pie.

I love to cook—but I can’t imagine how anyone ever invented our most basic recipes: a simple cake, a loaf of bread, a scrambled egg, a pie.

To my mind those breakthroughs are as mystifying as thinking up relativity or quantum theory. I’m glad I don’t have to come up with them myself. I’m content with tweaking traditional folk recipes and asking my neighbors to share the formulas for their own culinary triumphs.

Nevertheless, I do know that very time we cook or bake we’re using science and recreating the universe in numerous ways. Even though I managed to avoid taking chemistry in high school and college, I use its magical processes every day to create meals for family and friends.

When I follow a recipe or consider a specific food, the neurons (or whatever the heck does the work) in my brain conjure up the person who first introduced me to that flavor. And of course when cooking I create something new out of unrelated matter—my own personal big bang.

(I’ve had a few little bangs in the kitchen as well, but that’s another topic.)

Apples are all around us at this time of year, embodying the coming autumn with that season’s key characteristics. They are cool. They are colorful. They are crisp.

Looking down at us from trees or up at us from a basket, they evoke wonder and laughter, just like the universe. They are comforting, nutritious, and versatile—capable of waxing sweet or sour (again like the universe), depending on their use.

My dog finds them on the road and uses them as balls, illustrating gravity (wouldn’t that old apple lover Isaac Newton be proud?) by propelling them down the street and running to retrieve them.

I’ll be posting some apple recipes here as time goes by. Luckily, none of them actually takes 13 billion years to make—unless you, like Sagan, like to consider the very, very big picture.

Tinky's Apple Scones

This simple recipe never fails to please. I made it almost weekly when I worked as the demo cook at Bloomingdale’s in Tysons Corner, Virginia. It’s also delightful with dried cranberries instead of the apple.

Ingredients:

1/2 cup sugar plus a bit more as needed for sprinkling
2 cups flour
1-1/2 teaspoons baking powder
1 teaspoon baking soda
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1/2 cup (1 stick) sweet butter
2/3 cup cut-up apple (about 1 medium apple—use a bit more if you like)
1 egg
2/3 cup buttermilk
1 teaspoon vanilla

Instructions:

Preheat the oven to 350 degrees and grease 2 baking sheets. Combine the sugar, flour, baking powder, baking soda, salt, and cinnamon. Cut in the butter, but be careful not to overmix. Stir the apple pieces into this mixture.

In a separate bowl, combine the egg, buttermilk, and vanilla. Add the apple mixture and blend briefly. Drop the batter in clumps onto the baking sheets. You may either make large scones (you’ll end up with 6 to 8 of them) or smallish ones (12 to 16).

Sprinkle additional sugar on top for added flavor and crunch. Bake for 18 to 25 minutes. Makes 6 to 16 scones, depending on size.