red pepper salad with hard boiled eggs and anchovies

So my last two posts have both involved roasted red peppers, something that I really enjoy, both eating and preparing. Today, I have one more idea of what you can do with them: a big old salad with anchovies, hard-boiled eggs, garlic, parsley and a nice vinaigrette with olive oil.

salad nicoise

Salade Niçoise is pretty complicated, as far as salads go. I mean, most salads do not involve cooking multiple components in what is ultimately a cold dish, lightly dressed in vineagrette. Not that I'm complaining, because a Niçoise salad is really good, and while it is filling enough to be a meal on its own, it isn't totally gluttonous to the point that it negates all the healthy connotations that go along with eating a salad for dinner. It's got potatoes and hard boiled egg, and some salty anchovies and capers, but all in all it is light and fresh. Laura suggested we make it one day when we had green beans and lettuce and tomato and potato from the food co-op, and it turned out delicious.

leeks vinaigrette

leeks vinaigrette

When I went out to Bellport on Labor Day there was a lot of food that I still couldn't eat. Juicy grilled steak was out of the picture, as was most other meat. One of the things I could eat, however, was melted leeks with onions. I don't know what Helen did to them, but the end result was a sweet, mellow leek relish that was so delicious I had to restrain myself from taking far more than my share. As long as I had a pile of leeks on my plate, I wasn't missing that meat.

Not long after that, I saw this recipe on orangette and it called out to me. I needed some leek goodness and I needed it now. As luck would have it, they were on sale in a bunch of three down at the Wild Olive Market at 125th street, so I snapped them up. (Fancy stuff like leeks doesn't often make it above 96th street.)


leeks with hard boiled eggs

Aside from cleaning the leeks, which is a surprisingly time consuming process, and struggling to fit the long leeks in the pot to boil them, this was a cinch to make. You simply boil the leeks until they are tender and falling apart, which takes about ten minutes, and then drain them, squeezing out excess water. Then you serve them with a vinaigrette of minced shallots, mustard, olive oil and white vinegar. I used a nice grainy mustard in the dressing and served those babies with a couple hard boiled eggs.

It was surprisingly rich and decadent for such a simple dish. Nathan and I both loved the soft, tender leeks and the tangy dressing. It's not often that he is willing to put a vegetable center stage as the main course, but this dish was a major exception. He was very impressed, and so was I. These are delicious!