Sunday, July 19, 2009

LOCAL STRING BEAN SALAD

    This salad is the base ingredients for Salade Nicoise, which is Rocco's favorite salad. And its a french salad, although he will claim Nice is Italian. Caught you there, Rocco! You like French things! I will make a proper Salade Nicoise when I have all the ingredients together just to drive Rocco crazier than he already is.
    In the meantime, this colorful string bean salad is a perfect warm day meal. Boil some string beans, red potatoes and onions together for a few minutes, drain them and dress them with olive oil and red wine vinegar salt and pepper. Some fresh herbs and chic peas would be nice, too. Dress the salad while hot because it really absorbs the olive oil and vinegar flavor. Serve warm or cold.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY BROTHER JOSEF!

2 comments:

Rocco Galatioto said...

My dear kinder, Nice or Nizza was, since time immemorial, part of the kingdom of Sardinia & Piedmont that also include Liguria and. if you cosult a map, Nizza is contiguous to this region. As part of a deal with the King of France, so that the Savoian king of Sardinia, whose capital was Turin, would get support with his problems with Austria, it was agreed that the latter kibg would cede to France Nizza and Savoia. Nice and Savoy. This disastrous deal or double cross by the ususlly untrustworthy French also gave Auatria continuing dominance over the Veneto region.
It was a very stupid move by the Italian kind whose dynasty was actually quite pathetic. It was his grandson, VictorEmanuel III, who in 1922 allowed Mussolini to form a government after failing to stop the so called march on Rome by a hadful of fascist pigs. It hs ironic that the great Giuseppe Garibaldi, the father of Italian unification who landed in Sicily in June of 1860, was born in Nizza. Culturally, Nice is as italian as pasta asciutta.
But what can I say, I only went to CCNY. I have been ti Nizza, twice and the city is much like Genova. The same pebble beach as in all the Italian Riviera. It was there that I first encountered the salade nicoise.
BTW in Nice thay alsao make the farinata - like panelle but baked, not fried- that they they make in Genova.
This past May I had exquisite Farinata in Gevova.It was a good try though. But as Nrucho Marx would say, "no sigar.

adozeneggs said...

I love Nicoise as well and have been to Nice. It did seem more Italian than French to me.
So, are the chickpea "pancakes" I ate in Nice French or Italian?
Delicious nonetheless.
BTW Balthazar on Spring St makes a great Nicoise with fresh tuna served rare. But, you've probably had the same one at Patis.