Tunisian Salad Platter {Assiette Tunisienne}

Full of fresh, crunchy vegetables, olives, capers and drizzled with a simple red wine vinaigrette, Tunisian Salad Platter (or Assiette Tunisienne) makes an impressive presentation for a buffet!  This is THE salad to make all summer long!

Before we get to this stunning Mediterranean-inspired salad, I’m super excited to tell you that I’m now a contributor to Parade Magazine’s Community Table.  Community Table is a family-friendly recipe website with all sorts of great recipes posted by bloggers and other food writers.  I post collections of recipes from my favorite food bloggers on various subjects.  So far I’ve got two posts under my belt:

• 16 Amazing Asparagus Recipes to Make This Spring
• A Dozen Devilishly Delicious Deviled Egg Recipes

Look for new posts from me at Community Table on a biweekly basis.

So, one thing that had to get moved the night the frozen pipe burst in our home was a bookcase FULL of cookbooks.  Oh, I’m not talking about a little bookcase…

I’m talking about THIS bookcase!  The cookbooks from this bookcase spent two months on our dining room table.  During the repairs, they were moved into a mobile storage unit parked in our driveway along with everything else from that part of the house.

We had two inches of water in that room by the time we discovered the flood.  The restoration company we used had to remove all the trim and drill two-inch holes in the drywall.  We were fortunate they didn’t have to cut the drywall.  However, we had industrial fans blowing into holes in four rooms for close to a week!  Talk about the proverbial “not being able to hear yourself think!”

When the repairs were finished and I was able to put my cookbooks back, I hired a college student to help me reorganize them.  So now, I’ve got cookbooks within reach that weren’t in reach before.  It’s like I’ve got tons of new cookbooks!

The 1990’s were my vegetarian days so I have a vast number of vegetarian cookbooks.  A vegetarian cookbook series called The Vegetarian Table was done back in the 1990’s by noted cookbook writers.  For example, Deborah Madison did one on American vegetarian cuisine, Julia Della Croce did Italian and Kitty Morse did North African.  I have some cookbooks from this series but not all.  I need to get on that and complete my collection!

I don’t use my cookbooks often enough, but occasionally will grab one, open it and make the recipe no matter what it is unless it’s for something I simply will not eat–like offal.  This time, I opened the one on North African cuisine by Kitty Morse and a beautiful Tunisian salad called Assiette Tunisienne was calling my name!  I LOVE all forms of Mediterranean-inspired salads!

Kitty calls it Tunisian Salad Plate but this one fills a platter so I’m calling it Tunisian Salad Platter!  According to Kitty, the presentation of this salad varies as much as the ingredients.  Sometimes the vegetables are sliced or in larger pieces as is shown here and sometimes they are diced and garnished with capers, olives and eggs.  If you have leftover hard-cooked eggs from Easter, this salad is a great way to use them.  Occasionally, the salad is topped with canned tuna making this salad similar to a Salade Nicoise.

There’s another classic Tunisian salad called salade méchouia where the vegetables are grilled.  This is a raw salad except for the eggs.

Tomatoes, cucumbers, green bell pepper, onion… oh my!  You’ll want to make this Tunisian Salad Platter all summer long!  I used plum tomatoes as they are one of the few varieties that are actually edible during non-tomato months.  This is perfect with grilled meat, fish or poultry!

I tweaked Kitty’s recipe for this salad just a bit.  I added sprigs of fresh parsley and some crushed red pepper flakes for a little heat to the simple olive oil and red wine vinaigrette.

Put this Tunisian Salad Platter on your “to make” list this summer!  And check out this wonderful vegetarian cookbook!  I’m going to keep this book off the shelf for a while and continue cooking through it!  There are some amazing recipes in this book!

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Tunisian Salad Platter or Assiette Tunisienne

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Prep Time 20 min

Cook Time 15 min

Total Time 35 mins

Ingredients

• INGREDIENTS
• 4 plum tomatoes, quartered and seeds removed
• 1 large green bell pepper, membrane removed, thinly sliced
• 1 English cucumber, peeled if desired, thinly sliced
• 4 thin slices from a large red onion, rings separated
• 3 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and quartered
• 16 Kalamata olives, pitted
• 3 tablespoons capers, large or small
• Italian parsley sprigs
• Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
• DRESSING
• 1/2 cup extra virgin olive oil
• 2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
• 1 tablespoon water
• 1 scant tablespoon Dijon mustard
• 1 teaspoon crushed red pepper flakes
• salt and freshly ground black pepper, to taste

Directions

1. INSTRUCTIONS
2. Arrange ingredients on a platter as follows: Tomatoes, eggs placed in between tomatoes here and there, green bell pepper rings, cucumber slices, onion rings, olives and capers. Garnish with parsley sprigs and give the salad a good dose of freshly ground black pepper.
3. DRESSING
4. In a small bowl, whisk together the vinegar, water and mustard together until smooth. Gradually whisk in the olive oil. Add crushed red pepper flakes and salt and black pepper to taste.
5. Serve immediately.

by Carol | From A Chef's Kitchen

Recipe Notes

NOTE: Cook time of 15 minutes is for the eggs if you don't already have hard-cooked ones available. Hard-cooked eggs can also be purchased.

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