Pan-fried Salmon Nicoise with Olive Tapenade
This traditional French dish from Nice in the south of France (hence its name Nicoise – pronounced nee-swah) is traditionally made with tuna, but I love it with the richness of salmon!
Ingredients
Nicoise Salad
- 400 g waxy baby potatoes
- 100 g green beans
- 1 baby cos lettuce
- 1/2 punnet cherry tomatoes
Dressing
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- 2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil
- 1/2 – 1 teaspoon liquid honey
- ¼ cup flat-leaf parsley chopped
- 1 clove garlic finely minced and grated
Salmon and olive tapenade
- 2 120-150g portion salmon fillets skin on
- 2 tablespoons olive tapenade* store bought – I used The Village Press, or see recipe in method
Instructions
- Halve any larger potatoes so they are all roughly the same size. Place potatoes in a pot with 1 teaspoon salt and cover with cold water. Bring to the boil and cook until potatoes are tender, 10-12 minutes.
- Trim green beans and cut in half. Separate baby cos lettuce leaves and roughly chop. Cut cherry tomatoes in half. Whisk all dressing ingredients together and set aside.
- Heat a drizzle of oil in a fry pan on medium to high heat. Pat salmon dry with paper towels and season with salt. Pan-fry salmon skin-side down until skin is crispy, about 2 minutes. Flip salmon over and continue to cook for a further 1 minute until just cooked through (salmon is best cooked medium to medium rare)
- Drain potatoes and toss with vegetables and dressing.
- To serve, divide salad and salmon between plates and spoon over some tapenade.
- To make an olive tapenade place 1¼ cups pitted kalamata olives and 3-4 tablespoons good-quality extra virgin olive oil in a food processor and blend until just combined. Makes about 1 cup. Keeps in the fridge for a couple of weeks.
Notes
This salad is perfect for a weeknight meal – easy and healthy with lots of flavour. Olive tapenade is a great thing to have in the fridge – very useful with meat, especially fish. I’ve included a recipe for olive tapenade below, but you can also just buy some from the supermarket. Snow peas would also be a delicious alternative to beans if they’re in season. If you like this recipe be sure to check out my other nicoise salad recipe here.