A Classic Salad Nicoise Recipe with an Innovative Twist

welcome culinary enthusiasts my name is chef John Paul Hutchins and I am thrilled that you're here today I've got a really really it's a classical but such a cool dish and I've got a very cool surprise at the end for you a very contemporary twist on it we're remaking classic salad nicoise now let me give you a little the backstory on salad nicoise there was a great chef called Augusto scoff EA chef of kings king of chefs and he would work for the most money to individuals and he opened up places like the Ritz alright and the moneyed individuals would go down to the south of France where they would the kings and queens and landlords and they would have a great time at the seaside and then in the winter months they would go back to Germany England or other countries well nice is a part of the French Riviera and nice was famous for a few ingredients like tomatoes Nicoise olives tuna of course green beans all these wonderful flavors and what a scoff a decided to do was well he was not only a great chef but he was a great entrepreneur and he was getting into the canned food business now that doesn't seem like much now but back then it was a big deal if you could have tomatoes out of season and Escoffier started canning tuna and tomatoes and the idea was to build a salad around the items that were in Nice so that when these people went back to Central Europe or England or deeper into France well they could still have that amazing tuna they could still have those amazing tomatoes so we built this salad to market his products and it's a salad that's been around for over 100 years it's incredibly famous and it's loaded with techniques so I want to show you the salad right now now the first thing I have over here it might seem a little unusual but I have some tuna and this is fresh tuna now typically when you see a Nicoise salad you use canned tuna which would be traditional right this Goffe is canned tuna but what we're doing is we're poaching tuna in olive oil so I it's this is actually called a confit so I took this beautiful piece of tuna and I took some olive oil and I added some whole garlic to it and I added some thyme and some rosemary some peppercorns you could really add any flavor that you want to good olive oil and then I just cooked it and I'm talking like 160 degrees it's not like frying and the idea is to draw that flavor out the French might call it a TESOL all right so it's an extraction of all those flavors into the oil so as I slowly cook this tuna in here it takes on the flavor of all those items so I'm just going to put this on a little paper towel just for a bit so this is going to be served at room temperature so I'm just going to let this hang out okay so to cook my the rest of my tuna I'm just going to throw it in and in a very low temperature if I start to see bubbles that means I'm frying so at about a hundred and sixty degrees perfect I'm going to move this over here this will take about 10 to 15 minutes and then I'm going to turn the heat off and just let it sit and relax and soak up all that amazing flavor and olive oil so low temperature and we're going to check on that in a little bit okay now over here I'm going to boil up some green beans okay specifically something called article there all right which is a green it's a thin green bean that came originally from Europe they're widely available in the United States I love them they're super delicate they're super tender now when you cook green beans and the style we're going to cook them is called Elan glaze in the English style which means boiled it's in salted water now most people when they salt water they use it kind of like magic pixie powder okay where they're going to sprinkle a little bit in there and it's really not going to have a whole lot of impact they just walleye salted the water you I want you to salt water until it tastes good so using a spoon I'm going to show you the two spoon method this one goes in the pot this one goes in my mouth I taste it it's okay but it could use some more salt now it should be the flavor of seawater I should taste the salt because if the water has no flavor it will have no impact on the vegetables and what will happen is the amazing flavor from the green beans instead of being enhanced by the cooking process is actually going to leach its flavor into the water so I'm going to have tasty water and bland green beans okay this is such a simple technique but it will change everything that you do apply this to all your vegetable cooking all your potato cooking all your pasta cooking I'm telling you this will change you all right so I'm using kosher salt also that is perfect I'm going to bring this up to a boil now when we say all on glazed or boiled vegetables actually all on glaze was kind of a joke because the English had a reputation for boiling everything so the French just called it if you're boiling it all on glaze but it's really a very practical very simple way of preserving flavors and vegetables now when we're cooking vegetables it became popular to cook them Holub dente and people got carried away in the 80s and 90s with al dente al dente was basically I was getting vegetables that weren't really even cooked I mean the color was set on the outside but they would just go in basically be passed over a pot of boiling water and then served to me al dente means to the tooth I'm going to call these fully cooked and a fully cooked vegetable is al dente it's still as a Christmas it still has its flavor intact but it's not mushy so I shouldn't be able to take that green bean and slide the two halves apart it should have great flavor but it shouldn't be undercooked now under cook to me it still tastes like Earth or dirt all right it has a very deep flavor to it so I'm going to cook these until they taste good so for these guys I'm just going to put about half of these in I'm going to drop them in and I'm going to simmer though I'm not going to boil them because if I boil them they're going to beat each other up okay so I want these to cook gently these will take a couple minutes all right now let's talk about blanching parboiling and fully cooking well when I blanch something I do it for one of two reasons all right the name the word gets thrown around a lot but what it really means is either to set the color from something or to remove flavor for something from something so something like kidneys all right have a strong flavor I would blanch a kidney to pull that strong flavor out and make them you know basically cut the strong flavor and bring out the wonderful flavor of it with vegetables if I'm doing broccoli like a crudite instead of just putting out plain old broccoli if I drop it in boiling water for just a second pull it out and then an arrest the cooking in cold water I have gorgeous color but it's still a raw crunchy vegetable part cooking means I'm going to cook it about half to 3/4 of the way because I plan on finishing the cooking process later fully cooked I'm going to cook the vegetable and serve it immediately so these are going to be fully cooked because I'm going to drop them in ice water to stop the cooking process and then I'm going to serve them ok so these are this is going to be a salad so it's a meant to be served cold so these guys are just about there I'm going to grab my tongs and pull them out and they look fantastic ok so simple look at the color on these things just absolutely gorgeous look at that that's the way a green bean should look beautiful delicate not falling apart okay they're holding their shape all right they're not limp gorgeous how long do I leave them in ice water well I leave them in ice water until they're chilled all the way through a lot of people will drop them in the ice water and leave them there for an hour well the same thing is going to happen is if I were to overcook it it's going to get waterlogged and a lot of the nutrients and a lot of the flavor is going to go up into the ice water so as soon as it's chilled I'm going to pull it out that should take just a second now next technique very cool technique I'm going to blanch some Tomatoes now remember Scott VA had fresh tomatoes all right so what I'm going to do is cut out the core and I'm going to make a little X on the bottom the way I do that I hold my knife I choke up to the tip and the reason I do that is in case somebody hits my thumb my hand my knife won't go through the tomato and into my hand safety at an angle I'm going to pivot pull out that core cut the end drop it in boiling water again boom pivot cut the end pivot cut the end okay now I grew up in America and I lived my whole life without having to peel the tomato so why do we do this well a couple things happen I'm going to make a vinaigrette to go on this and when I make the vinaigrette it won't soak into the peel it'll soak into the flesh but it won't soak into the peel so this will allow the vinaigrette to actually affect the flavor of the whole tomato also when you're eating it you won't have those pieces of skin that you're going to be spitting out okay it's in de Geste Abel great fiber but not so tasty now these are done I'm going to show you right now when they start to split open so that's perfect now not cooking the tomato I'm just peeling it see perfect perfect so once again how long do I leave them in the ice bath just until they're chilled they'll get water lock think about a tomato I don't want to be spongy so if it turns out that I left these in a little bit too long maybe my tomatoes are super ripe and they just get really soft on me all of a sudden it's that time of the year turn them into tomato sauce turn them into tomato coulis chop them up throw them in something else make salsa unbelievable best sauce you've ever had don't use the canned stuff use fresh tomatoes unbelievable now I'm going to peel them and I'll use you see get rid of this guy just have a little garbage plate here couldn't be any simpler boom peel peel peel beautiful if they get stuck I can use my paring knife and the way that I do that is just to use my thumb to grab ahold of the peel pull it back pull it back one more pull it back pull it back easy you preserve the flavor of the tomato it's going to soak up whatever you put it with and these are also perfect for making tomato sauce gorgeous look at that okay I want to show you a trick and I hate to say but I've been hiding it from you it's under the cutting board you ever seen that nonstick shelf stuff that you put in your house well in the culinary business we actually use this as the non-skid surface under our cutting boards and the reason we do that is because we can wash and sanitize it so instead of putting like a wet paper towel or something that might get kind of funky I can one I can wash this I can put it in my knife kit I can travel with it and I've always got a safe non-skid surface try it at home it's simple and you can buy the stuff to the dollar store it doesn't cost anything all right next thing I want to show you I don't want to get my cutting board funky so I'm going to put down a towel and I'm going to make a vinaigrette now there's a couple elements to my vinaigrette here it's going to be real simple because I have so many different vegetables so many different flavors I'm going to add a little bit of basil at the end but I'm gonna actually fold that in as part of the salad so I'm going to use the basil almost as a lettuce instead of an herb all right because I want a lot of pop and I'm going to show you how to cut that to shift not very cool cut but I've got a garlic clove and I've got my traditional vinaigrette is one part or vinegar to three parts oil so I'm using one part white vinegar alright actually white wine vinegar not white vinegar white vinegar is the stuff you use to clean line deposits out of an iron alright you're really you don't want to use that for anything other than cleaning hot and sour soup is white vinegar and white pepper but other than that it's one of those feels like ice picks in your jaw when you eat that stuff nice white vinegar spend the money I've got a beautiful extra-virgin olive oil it's appropriate to this dish I want the olive flavor it's nice watch I've got olives in it otherwise if you're at home if you don't want the olive flavor use a neutral oil but the ratio is the same 1 part vinegar 3 parts oil now check this out I've got a garlic clove now when we clean garlic I'm going to cut the end off because it's bitter and I'm going to cut it in half now if you've ever seen garlic and they've got those little little cores on the inside that are green this one doesn't cuz it's pretty fresh I'd want to remove that and pull that out okay that's bitter all right cool trick so I'm going to get rid of these guys now have you ever been to a restaurant and ordered a salad and let's say it's a first date so everybody's on their best behavior and the salad comes with the meal and you bite into that salad and you get a chunk of garlic and all of a sudden your lungs are on fire I never want that to happen to my customers I want the romance to continue through the whole meal so that has to do with the way you chop the garlic now let me show you what I'm doing this is minced garlic and this is great for sauteing I don't want a big and chunky alright every cut has a different application so when I minced garlic this would be great in a saute because when I cut it by hand like this it won't burn up in the pan when you buy jarred garlic it's cut in a centrifuge so it's just vegetable matter all the protective oils have been whipped out but you put in a pan and burns instantly you've seen it right you've seen it happen chop the garlic by hand that won't happen but once again if I take this chunky garlic even though it looks pretty fine I'm going to bite into it solution turn it into a paste use some kosher salt and put a good amount of it on top and it's going to be used as an abrasive now check this out boom boom using the side of my knife just smear it now of course I'm going to have to alter the amount of salt that goes into the recipe now so I have to be mindful of the fact that I just used a whole lot of salt in this paste but the beauty is it instantly dissolves now and there's no chunks of garlic the other thing is when I add it I have immediate garlic flavor if I leave my garlic chunky it's going to take a while for that garlic to come out so I'll taste my dressing and then half an hour later it's going to taste different because that chunk of garlic is like a tea bag it's going to exude flavor okay boom and and it takes almost no time hmm now have you ever done this and you're trying to add the oil you know what I mean try this trick take a pot put it down put your ball in the pot it anchors it for you and then just whisk it in slowly now this is the temporary emulsion so in a temporary emulsion I have a water phase and an oil phase so the water phase is vinegar lemon wine anything like that the oil is being dispersed in the water by being broken up into droplets so the faster I whisk it the smaller the droplet is the more stable the emulsion but because there's no binder like egg yolk or lecithin or mustard it's going to separate so right now what I'm trying to do is just make everybody happy I'm just introducing the oil the vinegar and his pal garlic all right now you'll also notice that the garlic and the salt went in at the beginning any idea why well salt doesn't dissolve in oil that is dissolved in vinegar so when I add it to the vinegar it completely dissolves and then disperses throughout the oil so good flavor try it at home try dissolving salt in oil can't be done but I'll tell you what it's good for if you take kosher salt and some cheap oil it's probably the best way to clean a cast-iron pan too it's abrasive it's oil keep it nonstick okay so I'm going to let that sit I'm going to let all those flavors kind of meld together a bit now let's look at the rest of the items in our salad I'm get rid of this guy now all right I'm going to turn that off I'm done with that now I've got a couple of things here very excited I've got my green beans we've already seen them and they look okay they look good it's a nice green bean it's not a great green bean so what I'm going to do is I'm just going to cut some on a bias just to give it a cooler look kind of on a bias just make it look more interesting and notice I left that really cool tip on it also whoo get back here bias bias nice okay I mean tell me the truth look at this ready boom Industrial who that person must have had some training that looks pretty good see the difference much nicer looking all right these just look like chopped beans so we have beautiful ingredients we want to pay them the respect that they deserve by treating them right and making beautiful so cut all these guys on a bias beautiful alright I'm going to stack up a couple at one time cut them all on a bias go stack them up at one time cut them all on a bias oh now I got away from me Oh so I'm going to put these guys back in here ah throw this anyway ah breakfast radishes I love these things all right there if you're not a big fan of radishes I encourage you to try breakfast radishes they're a lot sweeter there a lot milder they don't have that big horseradish II feeling in your sinuses when you eat them that bitterness alright now I've got a couple options on way to cut this I want to remove the stem end and I can cut them in points or as the French would say a rondelle okay I can cut them on a bias which is kind of cool or as the French would say a sift let alright and a sift let actually came from cutting chives and things like that it's a cut on a bias and looks like a little flute so stiff that means flute or I can cut them lengthwise into quarters or six alright Jimmy crack corn you know what I mean have fun with it experiment different shapes different textures just make it appealing to the eye make it a little different okay this cut right now is speaking to me though this is the one that says it wants to be in the show so I'm going to put him there all right now quick note about the way I'm cutting things I want to show you really quickly how to safely cut you watch chefs on TV and it just seems like they're going rapid-fire and they never hurt themselves where there's a reason their hand is curled over like this their knife hand check the grip it's like that it's very stable I'm never like that that's a bad idea right it'll eventually inflame that ten in there okay and become very painful that's a good grip that's a good grip that's a good grip that's a good grip not a good grip good grip this hand my fingers if they're straight up and down I lean forward a bit so my fingertips are curled under so when I cut I'm using the circular motion with my hand like a choo-choo train and my left hand is protected because I can't cut my fingertips because they're not sticking out okay that's the technique now let's see what else we have I have ah beautiful celery now I love celery but I want to peel those long strings out of it have you ever flossed with celery I have okay those strings in there you want to get those out okay so if its young celery it doesn't have a whole lot of fiber in it but as it gets older ya can be pretty bad so I'm going to cut these on a bias I'm going to take these guys stick them over here and let's just go boom like this alright so pretty groovy bias-cut celery so I'm going to put this over here pretty cool alright pull these guys apart it's just a fun cut great for stir fries there they go right in there alright cucumber alright so I'm going to do something with the cucumber this is a European cucumber so when I work with the European cucumber I don't have to worry about peeling it because this the peel on the outside is very tender so it's not like an American cucumber where it's really waxy if I'm using you can use an American cucumber for this just make sure you peel it because then digestible but the one thing that I want to get out of here are the seeds and I use a spoon to do that and just gently peel out the seeds because they're bitter now the interesting thing is I challenge you at home to try this with the season without the seeds and you'll notice that the whole dynamic the whole flavor of the cucumber is going to be altered alright because once you remove that bitterness you bring out this very light sweetness of the cucumber that's inherently in there the bitterness was always in the wet give it a shot all right so I'm gonna do the other one so once again just real gently alright and believe it or not I find a plastic spoon works best because the edge is so thin and sharp okay and these I'm going to cut in with demi loon which means a half moon all right okay once again you can do this it's just technique make sure you have those hands curl back okay so I'm going to get rid of those guys alright so I'm building the base of my salad okay it's starting to look kind of colorful I've got some beautiful green over here I've got some red that's going to be worked in more red red red bell peppers I'm going to put this guy back over here so I want to cut Julian's alright so technically a julienne as an eighth of an inch by negative an inch by about two to two and a half inches but in France the cut really serves the dish so and also they have the metric system so they don't know from inches all right so trust me on this one so I'm going to cut off the stem and the blossom end or the top and the bottom I'll put these guys back over here because I can still use those for something else then I'm going to cut this let's go right about there and just open it up and there's my seed pod so I'm just going to cut that loose cut that loose cut that loose cut that loose alright and just remove that seed pod now that's garbage I don't want that obviously now in here I've got some beautiful pieces of pepper but I've got these guys in the way well if the seeds were bitter and the ribs are connected to the seeds the ribs are bitter so I want to remove that as well so I'm going to lay my knife off the side of the table okay so my knuckles aren't in the way over here and I'm just going to saw right across gently gently not a whole lot of pressure then reach over the top when I get close to my hand boom and then I'm going to go a little bit deeper and peel this off okay now this might seem wasteful but I can take this I can puree it and strain it and make juice out of it and that can be added to my vinaigrette a little bit later if I wanted to if I want to add some bell pepper flavor to it hold it down cut straight across hold it down cut straight across beautiful so I end up with these beautiful planks and remove my seeds here it's going to take a second and clean up so I want to make sure that I'm not working out of my own garbage I will create garbage because I'm working with food here just take a second to clean up tighten up your station beautiful now julienne same technique I used before that circular motion boom nice nice nice nice nice my fingers are curled back I have a great grip on the knife so I'm very secure now I've got a green bell pepper over here but I'm going to make the chef's choice because I've got a lot of green going on in the salad so I'm going to omit it but you can certainly add it alright remember all of these recipes once you get the techniques down they're a starting point for what looks good to you what tastes good to you alright if I go to the supermarket and the red bell peppers just don't look good or they're super expensive I'm not going to use them all right but I can still make the salad so once again a couple of techniques thousands and thousands of variations it's really up to you and your creativity okay so clean this off wipe my knife down okay now there has to be potatoes in here because potatoes are a big part of nice and I've got a couple here I've got fingerling potatoes I've got red bliss I'm going to go with the red bliss today just because I I love fingerlings but I just want that red look now let me show you something about cutting potatoes I'm going to dip in ice water and actually pull these guys out they are done nice and chilled all the way through beautiful not waterlogged still nice and crunchy so I'm going to dip it I learned it from a sushi chef dip it tap the end of your knife and a bead of water goes all the way down the blade and then I slice boom boom now these are perfectly cooked if they're overcooked they're going to start to fall apart on me if they're overcooked smash them up when they're hot hidden with a little bit of pickle juice bang with some mayonnaise you've got an unbelievable potato salad that's another interesting thing about the French is they wouldn't throw away pickle juice they wouldn't throw away olive juice so I'll actually use that as a liquid if you think about it's a brine it's saltwater its flavored salt water so that flavor can be used in other things okay and I'm just going to kind of put these guys back together the way that I cut them for my presentation all right what else do I have I've got my Nicoise olives we're going to use those I have my eggs same thing dip cut alright perfect hard-boiled egg no green nice and creamy on the inside the way we cook hard-boiled eggs here put an egg in a pot of cold water never never never boiling water start in cold water bring it to a boil cover it pull it off the fire and leave it for 20 minutes it will be the tenderest tastiest cream you say you've ever had completely cooked but you won't have that that that off sulfur aroma all right beautiful so we're going to put those right there and then I have my beautiful tomatoes and we are almost ready to assemble our finished dish I'm getting very excited and I'm just going to take this guy I'm going to quarter him and boom and boom and I'm going to go in between here and just open it like a book go and open it like a book like that and I'm going to take a slice of egg and put it in there and take a slice of egg put it in there okay so that'll be one of my garnishes for my plate now let's build this plate beautiful clean plate now classically when you make a salad there has to be an under liner and in this case we're going to use Boston or Bibb lettuce which are both gorgeous and the under liner kind of frames the salad so I'm going to put a piece here and put a piece here now this has all been washed off and the way I washed it off was in a deep sink full of ice water and I allowed the lettuce to kind of plunge and sit in there so all the dirt went to the bottom what I do not want to do is now empty the sink with the lettuce in it because then the lettuce will go down and sit in the dirt in the bottom right makes sense so I'm going to gather up all that lettuce and I wrapped it in paper towels and put it in the refrigerator and let it just plump up okay and it looks doesn't it look good really looks good right now all right now making our salad what do I want to do first I've got my dressing and what I'm going to do because we want this to look beautiful is I'm going to dip things into the dressing so I'm going to put a little bit of dressing in the bowl and I'm just going to kind of toss stuff in there all right this is the difference between four stars and five stars so I'm going to a dressing one or throw just a pinch of white pepper and the reason I'm using white pepper is white pepper enhances the flavor of other things black pepper really the flavor if I want to taste pepper I use black pepper if I want to enhance the flavor of something with pepper I use white pepper so oftentimes you'll see white and black pepper using the same dish so I'm reeling this and then I'm just going to put a little drizzle in just a little bit and I'm going to start with my beautiful potatoes and I'm just going to bathe them in here just ever so gently both sides oh look at you that is a pretty potato that's a very happy potato him there okay I got my other potato and we'll bathe him could be her I think it's no this is a him it's a ham potato that goes there just a little bit yeah I want to make sure the room my plate stays clean now I'll put these guys here and here I've got the spoon over here I'm just going to drizzle just a little bit of vinaigrette remember we went through all the trouble of peeling those Tomatoes so you get some vinaigrette on them pretty okay now we're in the crescendo phase I'm going to go boom my red bell peppers I'm going to go boom with my beautiful cucumbers I'm going to go boom right here and right here I'm going to throw some of these guys in this is starting to look very good more color throw it in throw my celery gorgeous just pile it all in there all goes in all goes in mix it around okay I don't want to overdress the salad I just want to have a nice glaze now at this point I'm just going to move some of these things off clean up my board a little bit and I'm going to shipping out some basil because remember I said before I was going to use the basil as kind of a salad green instead so here's my basil I love this I can't be in a bad mood when I have basil it's springy it's light it's got so much flavor and the problem is a lot of people will just throw it and hack it up I don't want to do that I want to release all the flavor but I want to keep the basil looking beautiful the technique we use is called Shifa not so to ship a nod essentially I'm going to stack my basil on top of itself boom boom leaves leaves leaves stack stack stack stack and then roll it up now this is about as tight as a cigarette and hopefully I haven't smoked but but it should be that fine and I'm using no downward pressure whatsoever so I can cut this pretty fat or I can cut a pretty skinny depending on what I want to do alright so Nicoise is kind of an elegant salad but it's also from a rustic setting so I'm going to go kind of in between so the reason I'm not using a lot of downward pressure is I don't want to crush the leaf so I like the leaf to cut I don't want it to depress okay ideally when I throw this in with the rest of my beautiful vegetables here all the flavor goes in the bowl my cutting board shouldn't Rika basil if I chop basil on my boards Green my board tastes great because that's all the basil flavor is I'm going to throw this in I'm just going to put a pile in the middle of the plate just like that pretty pretty we're almost there okay so I have the last two things I have olives and anchovies now my anchovy haters are out there my anchovy lovers are out there okay it's the gorgonzola of the fish world people either hate it or they love it all right I want you to love anchovies but what's that okay what we did was the French do something called de Gorge a where they soak the anchovies in milk and when they do that it pulls out the strong fishy flavor you can also rinse them off and then I'm just going to Pat them dry so just paper towels clean paper towels I've got some basil there boom Pat them dry and then I'm going to roll my olive up in the anchovy little fella look at him just like that and roll him up put in there.put in there and the reason I do this is for the people who are not crazy about anchovies it gives them an option and then the last thing I do is I place my tuna on top and I can take the tuna and just squeeze it gently and break it a little bit tear it apart just like that just break it just where it naturally wants to break so I'm not a big fan of cutting it I like a little more rustic look how's that for a salad nicoise pretty cool it's nice it's very classical it looks good it's going to be tasty but you expect more from the cordon bleu don't you allow me to show you a contemporary spin on the classic salad nicoise Carla so one of our amazing students carla has put together a plate that was designed by one of our chefs and this is a liqueur Dom blue contemporary interpretation of a salad nicoise we have the egg this tuna has been torched this one has been cooked confit this one was poached and this one over here was frozen and grated tartare okay we have olive dust we have a parsley sauce we have all these different components there's my dried tomato there's my beautiful little member potato has to be in there so there's a little potato wheel okay classic techniques contemporary application this is who we are welcome to the cordon bleu I'll see you on campus you

Channel: LeCordon Bleu

Views: 515,630

Keywords: cooking, school;, demo;, Chef, Food, Kitchen, Lesson;, salad, Education, Salad Niçoise (Dish)

Id: V9_uhiIh0YM

Length: 38min 9sec (2289 seconds)

Published: Wed Jan 11 2012