Salade Composee

This is another dish I feel weird writing instructions to because I make it differently every time and because it's so easy, it's not really a recipe. Nevertheless, this is a request from my recipe loving mother, who wanted instructions when I sent her a photo of my dinner the other day.

Ok, so Salade composee is just a composed salad, so instead of throwing and tossing e erything together, you arrange ingredients more formally in small groupings, like a miniature landscape painting that you can eat. That being said, I am sure the French have their own rules regarding composee, but I don't know them nor do I care particularly.

My composee always has a few basic inclusions: lettuce, egg, canned fish, potato, olives and/or capers, and a rotating assortment of raw veggies. Typically, one of which is either asparagus or green beans (I like the look of long green things on the plate).

Salade Composee
Serving size per person

Butter lettuce, whole leaves (or any soft leaved lettuce like red leaf, oak leaf, or green leaf)
1/2 Can fish (tuna or sardines)
2-3 small potatoes (depending on size you may only need one)
Small handful green beans (or asparagus)
3-5 kalamata olives
1 medium boiled egg
Assorted veggies of choice (I like carrots, cucumber, tomato)
Olive oil
Fresh lemon juice
Sea salt to taste
One small clove raw garlic

1. Boil some water and cook your potatoes in their jackets until they can be pierced easily by a fork (25 min ?). In the meantime, trim your asparagus, julienne your chosen veggies, and set them aside.
2. Remove your potatoes to a cold bowl of water with tongs- do not discard your hot water!
3. Add your asparagus and blanch in the potato water 2 minutes depending on thickness; I think greenbeans take a bit longer, but just check them for a pleasant taste, vivid color, and good snap.
4. Remove your asparagus with tongs to a bowl of cold water (I usually throw them in with the potatoes and just refresh the water).
5. Boil your egg (6 min?) and while you're waiting, remove your cooling potatoes and asparagus from the the cold water.
6. In a mortar and pestle, make the vinaigrette: add olive oil and fresh lemon juice and whisk. The basic rule for all vinaigrettes is 3 parts oil to 1 part vinegar, or in this case lemon juice. I admit though that I like mine with more bite and almost always do 50/50 split. At least, this is my perception, but I don't know for certain because I never measure anything.
7. Cut your potatoes into bite size pieces and put them in a mixng bowl with your one pressed clove of garlic, add olive oil and sea salt and toss with tongs. Remove to another bowl, taking care to leave as much extra oil and garlic in the bowl as is natural and not time consuming.
8. Add your asparagus to the same bowl and toss in the remaining potato dressing.
9. Arrange whole lettuce leaves in single layer bed, to cover the plate, and drizzle with a tablespoon full of vinaigrette.
10. Arrange the remaining items in single clusters on the bed of lettuce and drizzle the crude veggies with more vinaigrette, pepper it all to taste and enjoy!

Salade Composee is definitely more time consuming than a regular salad, but it's a main course, and involves minimal stove prep, so it's a standard dinner option in our house in the summer where we suffer miserable heat waves without central air in the teeming disgustingness that is the Bronx, lol. It's not that bad, I'm prone to hyperbole... anyway, happy salad making!!!