Flounder Nicoise Salad

This recipe was in our FASTer Way To Fat Loss meal plan, but with salmon fillets. I do not buy frozen fish, since I live on the Gulf Coast and my husband is an avid fisherman. So, I turned this dish into the fish we had on hand. You can use any type of fish you choose.

Nicoise salad (pronounced nee-SWAZ) is from Nice, France. I had to research this info because I totally was messing up the pronunciation of this dish and I had never heard of it before. It looked like NOISE- LOL

I found this information on Wikipedia- ” In the late 19th century was a basic combination of tomatoes, anchovies and olive oil, described as “simple food for poor people”. The dressing included olive oil, vinegar, mustard, and herbs. ”

The main part of the salad was farm-fresh green beans, potatoes, tomatoes, olives, and boiled eggs with tuna. Each of these items was layered upon a bed of lettuce.

I kept the add-on toppings separate because of everyone’s likes and dislikes of olives.

It turned into a build a salad bar. Also, some people just don’t like their food touching, so they opted for separate potatoes, green beans, and fish. This ain’t no salad- LOL. “Why are the green beans cold?” was another question.

Reading about how the salad has evolved and tradition played a role in the manner it was prepared made me chuckle. How can someone tell you how to prepare a dish and you must not make this salad unless you follow the traditions- garlic rubbed wooden bowls, if using tune no anchovies, and never add a boiled vegetable to a salad. Some debated no lettuce or it must have lettuce.

Cooking and following recipes is a love-hate relationship for me. I love to cook but have a hard time following recipes. I tend to add a little here and delete a little there. Marjoram goes into almost every dish I cook.

So here is my version of the Nicoise salad, Galveston styled with flounder.

It seems complicated, but it really only is cooked in 4 parts. You can make it real simple and buy steamer bags of vegetables. I do believe the best part was the dressing or dipping sauce. It so needed the chunks of hard bread to dip into it.

Ingredients

• 4 fillets of flounder (or your favorite fish)

• 4 hard boiled eggs

• 4 cups of fresh green beans

• 4 cups of small new potatoes

• 2 cups of grape or cherry tomatoes halved

• 3 green onions chopped

• 1 cup of pitted kalamata olives or black olives

• 3 slices of bacon (green beans)

• 1 onion chopped (green beans)

• 1 tsp onion powder (green beans)

• 1 tsp marjoram (green beans)

• 1 tsp pepper (1/2 for potatoes and 1/2 for green beans)

• 1 1/2 tsp salt (1 for potatoes and 1/2 for green beans)

• 1 TBS everything but a bagel seasoning (potatoes)

• 2 TBS olive oil (potatoes)

• Tony Chachere’s to dust flounder fillets

• 4 TBS of nonsalted butter to top fish

Dressing:

• 1 1/2 TBS dijon mustard

• 1/3 cup apple cider vinegar

• 1/3 cup of olive oil

• 3 garlic cloves minced

• 1 1/4 tsp Italian seasoning

Directions

Pre-heat oven to 400 degrees

Add eggs to cold water and bring to boil. When boiling starts remove from heat and cover with a lid for 12 minutes. Then dump water out and run cold water over eggs fill the pot back up with water add ice and let sit.

Prepare vegetables while eggs come to a boil.

Wash potatoes and green beans.

Cut potatoes in half and pinch off the ends of green beans. You can break the green bean in half or leave it whole.

In a bowl mix oil, salt and pepper, and everything but a bagel seasoning. Add potatoes and toss evenly. On a parchment-lined baking sheet dump potatoes and spread them out. Place in oven for 30 minutes or until tender-pierces easily with a fork. When done remove from oven. DON’T TURN OFF THE OVEN. I did and it was uh oh why isn’t the fish done yet. This is why the green beans and potatoes really had time to cool off.

You can cook fish and potatoes at the same time. I was waiting on my husband to finish filleting the flounder so I started prepping everything else.

Dust fish fillets with Tony Chachere’s and place them on a nonstick broiler pan. Bake in the oven for 20-25 minutes till flakey. Remove from oven and top each fillet with butter.

Cut up the strips of bacon and add them to the pot you will use to cook green beans. Cook bacon on medium heat till slightly crispy, then add in the chopped onion. Sautee for 3 minutes. Add in green beans and enough water to cover your beans. Add in the remaining spices. Bring to boil. Original recipes say to boil for 5 minutes this leaves the green bean crunchy. I boiled for 15 minutes (I know my family). You decide on the tenderness of the green bean. When done drain water from the green beans and set them aside to cool.

While everything is cooking, boiling, icing or resting make the dressing.

To make the dressing, combine the dijon mustard, olive oil, apple cider vinegar, garlic, and Italian seasoning and mix well. I use my measure, mix, and pour containers from Pampered Chef. You can use a small mason jar with a lid.

Shake-shake-shake.

Wash tomatoes and green onions. Cut tomatoes in half. To make cutting up the tomatoes quickly I used my close and cut. Cut up an onion. Drain olives. Peel eggs and cut them in half. I put each of these items in separate serving bowls for people to add what they liked.

Here is a video on how to use the close and cut.

To serve you can layer each salad as follows: divide the roasted potatoes, eggs, green beans, cherry tomatoes, and olives between plates. Top with flounder and drizzle with the desired amount of dressing, top with green onions. You can also let everyone fix their own plate and see what they do with all the yummy vegetables and fish. Enjoy.