Hot Smoked Salmon Salad with Quails' Eggs
– How to Cheat

This salad, inspired by the Nicoise version, is an absolute doddle if you happen to have a Waitrose in your area. They sell hot smoked salmon and, wait for it, ready-cooked quails' eggs – such an intelligent thing to offer a busy person looking for a little help here and there. No Waitrose near you? Fear not, hot smoked salmon is available at other supermarkets and boiling your own quails' eggs (5 minutes) is not a big deal (or you can use 2 hard-boiled hens' eggs, cut into quarters). That said, whilst we devised this salad we did a taste test on ready-prepared vinaigrettes and Maille vinaigrette de Dijon came out tops.

Serves 4-6

Ingredients

12 oz (350 g) red, ripe tomatoes
4 oz (110 g) baby leaf salad (we like Florette baby leaf salad)
1/2 small cucumber
1 lb (450 g) cleaned new potatoes
4 oz (110 g) French beans
4 shallots
1 x 160 g pack hot smoked salmon
1 x 130 g pack Trésors De Cailles Apéri Quail (12 hard-boiled quails' eggs)
2 oz (50 g) anchovy fillets
2 oz (50 g) black olives
a small handful fresh parsley
4 tablespoons Maille vinaigrette de Dijon

Begin by steaming the potatoes. First pour boiling water from the kettle into a pan fitted with a fan steamer, then place the potatoes in the steamer and sprinkle with salt. Then put a tight lid on and let them steam over gently boiling water for 15-20 minutes or until the potatoes are tender. Pop the French beans into the steamer halfway through the cooking time, to steam alongside the potatoes for 8-10 minutes. Meanwhile, cut each tomato in half and hold each half in the palm of your hand (cut side up), then turn your hand over and squeeze gently until the seeds come out; it’s best to do this over a plate or bowl to catch the seeds. Now cut each tomato into quarters. Then cut the cucumber into smallish chunks, slice the potatoes, and finely chop the shallots and parsley – a Mini Chopper will do this in seconds (see link at the end of the recipe).

Then, in a large salad bowl, arrange the tomatoes, salad leaves, cucumber, potatoes, beans and chopped shallots in layers, sprinkling in half of the dressing in as you go. Next break the salmon into chunks, halve the quails' eggs and put them on top of the other ingredients, then arrange the anchovies in a criss-cross pattern, followed by a scattering of olives, the chopped parsley and a final sprinkling of the rest of the dressing. Serve with warm, crusty baguette and Normandy butter.

How to Cheat Hero Ingredients: