A Splendid Summer Lunch, Mediterranean Style

With his twin sons on hand, Bill Buford explains the steps to a successful salad Niçoise.

[upbeat music]- You gonna drive?By the time you come back you can havea late lunch of salad nicoise.My beloved with her watermelon pink hair.- Welcome to another installmentof Buford and Sons,to include me, Bill Buford,our cinematographer George Buford,whom you will never see,and our director Frederick Buford,whom you'll probably see too much.Today we're making a salad nicoise,a cold summer dish fora hot summer afternoon.A salad nicoise is a salad from Nicein the South of France onthe Mediterranean coast.It has all the heartyingredients that you would expectto find this time of the year in August.They include new potatoes,ripe tomatoes, green beans.Traditionally in theclassic French preparation,there'd be haricots verts.- Haricots verts.- Which are the refineddelicate green beansthat you can get in France.If you're passing throughNice on your way to Italy,this is also what they eat in La Guardia.Everybody has green beans, potatosand tomatoes in the summertime.This is the fundamental ofthe Mediterranean summer.The only thing you needare your pantry dishes.Anchovies, olives,tuna, canned tuna.This from a very reputable maker.All the tuna is pole andline caught carefully,not part of the industrialeffort to exterminate the fish.Eggs, herbs-- [buzzing]- Huh, sorry?- Eggs, herbs-- [buzzing]- Eggs, parsley, dill,basil.

[bell dinging]We're going to prepareeach item individually.Each item has its ownway of being prepared.I'm preparing my green beansby plucking off the ends, thus,rather than with a knifeon a cutting board.There's a word for this in French.Effiler.

[record scratching]- I'd like to apologize to the viewers,this is so boring, I'm so sorry.- I've got a lot of beans to pluck.Step number one, putting thecooking potatoes in water.You start from from cold,and we're going to bring the potatoesand bring it to a boil,lower the boil to asimmer for 20, 25 minutes.[clocking ticking and alarm sounding]Testing the potatoesfor doneness, excellent.Chill them.So here we peel off the potato.I admit I overcookedthese a couple of minutesand it makes it a little trickierto pull the skin of the potato peel.- The next time I'm in ourpreparation are the eggs.The eggs are like a 19th century feature.I don't know how manypeople really decoratetheir dishes with eggs anymore.This dish was codified,made part of the classicrepertoire by Auguste--- Repertoire, repertoireby Auguste Escoffier,he's the great catalogerof all French dishes.He was born near Nice.And as it happens, hisfirst restaurant jobat the age of 13 wasworking for his uncle.In Nice.The guy knew what he was talking about.- And what he would dois what he would hard boil these eggs.What we're gonna do iswe're going to try to soft boil them.Everybody has their wayof making what I hopewill turn out to be a soft-boiled egg.I always warm it up in waterso the egg is close to room temperature,and then I put them in the water.This is a little warm already,so it's not going to break the egg.This is a slightly embarrassing shotbecause it has bits of potato in the waterbecause this is the water thatI cooked the potatoes with.But since it's an egg, it'snot really gonna matter, is it?At the moment the eggs are boiling.You can hear it.I turn them off.I put on my stopwatch, four minutes,and immediately iced them.Into the ice water to stop them cooking.And we hope they're not hard boiled.The last ingredient that needs cooking.We've done the potatoes,we've done the eggs,now we have the green bean,[Frederick cheering]one of the essential elements of the dish.If you don't have greenbeans, don't do the dish.- [Frederick] And who cares?No green beans, no dish.- And into the hot water, boiling already.[Frederick cheers]- It goes, three bunches maybe I, whoops.Bring to a boil and dropthem into ice water.And now we get to our pantry items.I'll decant them, then we mixall our ingredients together.Yes, of course she couldmake a salad nicoisewith fresh tuna, who wouldn't?I mean it sounds delicious,except somehow it violatesthe principle of the dish.The dish is summerfresh, and pantry items.- [Frederick] That's nasty.- It's delicious.- [Frederick] That's gross looking.- Next are anchovies.Ahhh.- [Frederick] Pleasedon't make that sound.That's really weird.- There are those whodon't live on anchoviesand then there's the rest of the world.Yum.Now I'm making my vinegarette.An interesting thing about the,the obsessive, the Nice,in relation to this dishis that they regard vinegar asextra, not necessary at all.Olive oil, essential.Six spoonfuls of olive oil,and what the good peopleof Nice regard as completely optional,but I liked the bite, a littlemore than two spoonfuls.Next, just a little bit ofmustard, a little bit of garlic,salt,pepper,and whisk.Finally, after all the boiling and icingand boiling and icingand boiling and icingand plucking and slicing,finally, it's the timeto assemble our salad nicoise--[record scratching]- I'm so scared of you right now.I'm, this is terrifying.- First, we prepare theplatter with a slice of garlic,a little bit of mesclun, here's the base,I'll throw in a couplebasil leaves as well.Our green beans,our tuna,our anchovies,our potatoes,completely unnecessary, dated,but rather a nicely-boiled eggs,our olives,our tomatoes.I'm gonna be reckless and add some capers,basil, parsley.- [Frederick] It smells delicious.- [Bill] It does, doesn't it?All right, vinegarette.- [Frederick] Smells like summer.- Smells like summer.A little bit of ground pepper.[speaking in foreign language]A salad nicoise, the taste of summer,a cold dish on a hot afternoon,full of vibrant, good foods.Jess, what are we drinking?- I think most people whoare eating a salad nicoisein the South of France or anywherewant a nice cold glass ofrose, probably from Provence,but there's none in our neighborhoodthat I like from Provence,so I thought we could trythis Terra Santa from Corsica.I've never tried itbefore, but it's only $10.It's a nice color, right?- Sorry.

I just wentstraight for the glass.That's delicious.- Mm.- [Frederick] Okaygreat, but can we eat it?Like please, and thank you.