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Seasonal Eats: Recipes for Mardi Gras, Easter, and Just Regular Winter-Into-Spring Days
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RECIPE: Spring Niçoise Salad
- Yield: Serves 4 to 6 1x
Description
Watercress makes a nice salad base in the spring, especially if you can pick it fresh in the wild near running streams. Considered a super food — loaded with iron, calcium, fiber, and vitamins — watercress is among the top 10 healthiest vegetables. If watercress is unavailable, arugula, baby kale, or spring lettuce mixes you find at local farm stands all work great. Fish markets often sell roasted salmon, bluefish, or trout. It’s chunky and slightly smoked — and very convenient to add to a salad. It is NOT the cured, thinly sliced salmon. Use this go-to lemon herb dressing for any spring or summer dinner salad.
Ingredients
Units
Scale
- Small roasting potatoes or fingerlings, scrubbed
- Olive oil
- Salt
- 1 small bunch of asparagus, rinsed and woody bottoms removed
- 1 14–oz can artichoke hearts, rinsed and dried (optional)
- 6 cups watercress or other spring baby salad greens
- 1 or 2 endives, cored and thinly sliced
- 1 or 2 packages smoke-roasted salmon, broken into chunks
- 1 cucumber or avocado, peeled, halved and sliced
- 1/4 red onion, cut into slivers
- 1/2 cup pitted niçoise, calamata, or your favorite olives
- Feta cheese, to taste
The lemon herb dressing
- 3 Tbsps fresh lemon juice
- 1 garlic clove, minced
- 2 tsps maple syrup or raw honey
- 2 tsps Dijon mustard
- 1/2 cup olive oil
- 2 Tbsps finely chopped fresh parsley, basil, dill, or chives (a combination of herbs is nice!)
- Salt and pepper to taste
Instructions
- Preheat the oven to 375°F.
- Slice potatoes in half and mix well with 1 tablespoon of olive oil and salt to taste. Spread out on a baking sheet lined with parchment paper or a silicone mat, and bake until easily pierced with a fork, about 30 minutes. Mix once or twice while baking. Set aside.
- Peel the asparagus, if desired. Mix well with 1 tablespoon of oil and spread out one side of a lined baking sheet. On the other side, add the artichoke hearts, drizzle with olive oil. Add this sheet pan to the oven where potatoes are baking and bake for 12 to 15 minutes, until the asparagus is fork tender. Set aside.
- Prepare your salad platter. Put the watercress or other spring greens and endive on the platter. Place all the ingredients in sections: the roasted salmon, cucumber or avocado, red onion, olives, feta, roasted potatoes, roasted asparagus, and roasted artichokes.
- Make the dressing by mixing all the ingredients together. Pass at the table. Remind people to mix the dressing a little before spooning onto the salad. Be generous with the dressing — it ties the salad together.
