Hot summer days demand cool salads and one couldn’t do better than the one I first encountered in the village of Collioure in southern France. There I had a salade Collioure, Collioure being a small French Catalan fishing village on the Côte Vermeille, the coastal Mediterranean of the French province of Roussillon which is considered a part of Languedoc, but is also a part of historic Catalonia. Today, this little gem of a harbor is populated with tourists, but in the twelfth century the large castle overlooking the town was built by the Majorcan kings and it provided protection for this tiny but strategic port. Little beaches are sprinkled around the coast and outdoor cafes always offer this colorful salad, also called salade catalane. It is a pleasant and light salad identical to the Tunisian salāṭat Tūnisiyya bi’l-tifāḥ.
- For the salad:
- 1 head Boston lettuce, torn into pieces
- ½ head radicchio, torn into pieces
- One 6-ounce can tuna in olive oil
- 2 ripe plum tomatoes, quartered
- 2 hard-boiled eggs, shelled and quartered
- 6 salted anchovy fillets, rinsed and cut in half
- 1 small red potato, boiled until tender, drained and cut into eighths
- 20 black olives
- For the vinaigrette:
- ⅓ cup extra virgin olive oil
- 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
- ½ teaspoon herbes de Provence
- 1 small finely chopped garlic clove
- Arrange the lettuce and radicchio attractively on a large serving platter. Scatter the remaining salad ingredients decoratively around and on top of the lettuce. Whisk together the vinaigrette ingredients, and pour over the salad, and serve.
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