Salade Parisienne

One of the gifts I received at Christmas was a lovely set of flavoured oils and vinegars in a stand. There are all sorts of oils, from chilli oil to basil oil and lemon oil. I have been admiring them for some time but not yet got around to using them. With the weather getting warmer it seemed the ideal time to give them a try. I decided to make a salad with a vinaigrette dressing. The other day I had bought some new potatoes and green beans which were the ideal base for a salade parisienne.

A salad parsienne consists of potatoes, green beans and lettuce carefully mixed in a vinagarette dressing. Meat, hard boiled eggs, tomatoes and cheese are then added. I used ham, but you could use left over beef or pork from a roast dinner. Top it off with a good sprinkle of chives and all is well with the world. It is not a diet salad, more a main meal. It is perfect for blustery spring days where the sun shines outside but the wind is chilly. It will make you think of long lazy summer days ahead whilst leaving you feeling full and contented. The vinaigrette dressing adds just the right amount of bite to bring out the flavour of the salad.

I used Happy Eggs to make the salad, free range eggs which are more tasty. This also gave me the chance to try out some of the food photography tips they sent me by Marte Marie Forsberg. One of my aims this year has been to improve my photography so I was happy to give this a try. There were some useful tips including using one main light source and thinking about composition of the photo. I had a play around with different accessories to create slightly different looking shots.

The good thing about salad is it is cold, so I was able to play around and take lots of shots without having to worry about my dinner getting cool. After all that photography it was a pleasure to eat the salad. There is something about thinking things out that seemed to make me more hungry. It was definitely worth the wait.

Salade Parisienne Recipe

Salade Parisienne

Alison

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Servings 4

Ingredients

  

• 200 g green beans
• 200 g new potatoes
• 4 eggs
• mixed salad leaves
• 4 slices roast ham
• grated cheddar cheese
• 6 to matoes
• chopped chives
• For the dressing
• 2 tsp mustard
• 2 tbsp balsmaic vinegar
• 2 tsp runny honey
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• salt and pepper

Instructions

 

• Boil some water in a pan.
• Top and tail the beans then blanch in the boiling water for a couple of minutes. Leave to cool
• Chop the potatoes and boil them in water until they are soft. Leave to cool
• Hard boil the eggs.
• Make the dressing by mixing the ingredients together in a jug.
• Add the salad leaves to a bowl with the potatoes.
• Toss the salad and the potatoes in the dressing.
• Add the rest of the ingredients, slicing into bite sized portions.
• Top with grated cheese and chives.

If you are in the mood for  a salad you might also like to try Chicken and Raspberry salad which is a great way of adding some fruit into a salad. Another great salad that uses eggs is this bacon, egg and mushroom salad which is perfect for brunch.

Read more:

• Healthy Egg Salad
• Braised cucumber in orange sauce

I was sent a voucher for some Happy Eggs in order to create a recipe.