Salade Niçoise

Salade Niçoise from the south of France is a salad with rules. The traditional Nice version uses raw vegetables — tomato, spring onion, broad beans, peppers — never cooked potatoes or green beans, with anchovies, olives, hard-boiled egg and good olive oil. The internationally-eaten version, popularised by Escoffier, adds the cooked elements and seared tuna, which is the version most cooks now recognise. The non-negotiables across both: the egg (hard-boiled or jammy, but present), the olives, the anchovy or tuna, and a sharp vinaigrette. Removing one and calling it a Niçoise is, in the eyes of any French diner, simply a tuna salad.