Rossouws Restaurants

Really fresh tuna, such as the hunk that The Hungry Man gave me a few days ago, has been caught that day or the day before. It’s been bled immediately, and stored on ice. When you sear it, it keeps its deep red interior, the crust firming and becoming tan along a clear dividing line - red inside, tan out. Inside soft and melting in consistency, the outside firm, with that typical tuna flake texture. Then you think of all that pre-frozen, de-frosted tuna you’ve had in restaurants and the resultant lack of flavour and texture, that dull not-quite-red colour of the flesh.

Once you’ve had your fill, you keep a few pieces and decide to use it in a Niçoise-style dish, like the salad. So that’s easy, I thought: potato, green bean, olive, maybe boiled egg, olive oil. But I was wrong. The Hungry Man got me thinking as he called to ask about dressing for Niçoise and I said: “Just good olive oil”. Then I pulled out the Larousse. A la Niçoise for fish turns out to be with coarsely chopped seeded tomato, anchovy fillet, olives and (sometimes) anchovy butter.

A salad Niçoise features tomato, cucumber, fava beans or artichokes, green peppers, raw onion, hard-boiled egg, anchovy fillet or tuna, black olives, olive oil, garlic and basil. But no potato. Turns out that, to be proper, potato only finds its place in a Niçoise set-up when you use it in a Niçoise garnish for large cuts of meat or poultry (when beans, courgettes and artichokes also make an appearance).