Tuna, Olives, Beets, String Beans and Hard-Boiled Egg

Eden Batki’s Niciose Salad

Thank You Rosekind, Tall Cup of Juice, directed by Eden Batki

 

  • Eden Batki’s Niciose Salad
  • Eden Batki’s Niciose Salad
  • Eden Batki’s Niciose Salad
  • Eden Batki’s Niciose Salad
  • Eden Batki’s Niciose Salad
  • Eden Batki’s Niciose Salad
  • Eden Batki’s Niciose Salad
  • Eden Batki’s Niciose Salad

NOTES

This salad is perfect eaten with your hands and pieces of lavash bread. To make this really special, get the best quality oil-packed tuna. I like Oritz brand from Spain. Make extra of the pickled red onion, these are good with everything.

INSTRUCTIONS

Pre-heat oven to 375. Wrap beets in tinfoil and place in oven. Roast for 45 minutes or until you can pierce easily with a fork. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Thinly slice your onion and add to a small dish with red wine vinegar, sugar and salt. Push the onion down to submerge in the liquid, and refrigerate.

Bring pot of water to boil, drop string beans in to blanch, remove after 30 seconds and add to an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Cut into 2″ pieces, discarding the ends.

Do not dump the water, reuse to cook potatoes. Boil until you can pierce easily with a knife. Remove from water, allow to cool, and cut into quarters.

Thinly slice radishes, romaine, and cabbage. Cut beets and egg into 1/2″ pieces. Cut olives in half.

Whisk together ingredients for the dressing, toss with all ingredients, including tuna (drain off excess olive oil). Add salt and pepper to taste.  Sprinkle with aleppo pepper. Serve with lavash bread or a thick piece of toast.

RECIPE

DIFFICULTY

MODERATE

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SERVES

4

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PREP TIME

60 MINS

Salad

  • 2 
     
    beets
  • 2 
    cans 
    oil packed tuna
  • 1/2 
    cup 
    thinly sliced red cabbage
  • 1  
    cup 
    romaine lettuce, sliced thin
  • 8 
     
    small new potatoes
  • 1/2 
     
    red onion
  • 1/3 
    cup 
    red wine vinegar
  • 1 
    tsp  
    sugar
  • 1/8 
    tsp 
    salt
  • 1 
    cup  
    string beans
  • 5 
     
    radishes
  • 2 
     
    hardboiled eggs
  • 1/3 
    cup 
    large green olives, pitted
  • 1 
    tsp 
    aleppo pepper

Dressing

  • 1 
    tbs 
    Dijon mustard
  •  
     
    lemon, juiced
  • 4 
    tbs 
    olive oil
  •  
     
    salt and pepper to taste

INSTRUCTIONS

Pre-heat oven to 375. Wrap beets in tinfoil and place in oven. Roast for 45 minutes or until you can pierce easily with a fork. Remove from oven and allow to cool.

Thinly slice your onion and add to a small dish with red wine vinegar, sugar and salt. Push the onion down to submerge in the liquid, and refrigerate.

Bring pot of water to boil, drop string beans in to blanch, remove after 30 seconds and add to an ice bath to stop the cooking process. Cut into 2″ pieces, discarding the ends.

Do not dump the water, reuse to cook potatoes. Boil until you can pierce easily with a knife. Remove from water, allow to cool, and cut into quarters.

Thinly slice radishes, romaine, and cabbage. Cut beets and egg into 1/2″ pieces. Cut olives in half.

Whisk together ingredients for the dressing, toss with all ingredients, including tuna (drain off excess olive oil). Add salt and pepper to taste.  Sprinkle with aleppo pepper. Serve with lavash bread or a thick piece of toast.

Eden Batki is my new crush. When I was last in L.A., I asked Claire Evans (lead singer of Yacht, and forthcoming salad guest) if she had any friends that should be featured on the blog. She immediately suggested Eden, the woman behind Eden’s Herbals, a line of herbal syrups, smoking herbs and body balms, and the smiling chef at Day Cafe, a pop-up lunch spot in the parking lot of Night Gallery. Eden started out as an artist, and found herself feeding artists more than making art itself. She keeps things simple, but has a wonderful grasp of herbs and edible plants. As soon as I entered the precious camper that is Day Café, she offered me an iced coffee with espresso cardamon syrup, followed by a turmeric rose soda and finally, salted plum chilisoda.  What was meant to be a quick visit, turned into an extended afternoon, cooking together, chatting and plotting future collaborations. Eden will be cooking up a storm feeding all the gallery staff and visitors to Los Angeles’ newly formed Arts District through September 6th.

Eden in Her Own Words

Julia: How did you begin working in food?

Eden: Everything happened organically. It started when my friend and artist Math Bass and I made an underground breakfast club at my old house in Echo Park. We served 40 people a weekend. We stopped doing that, and then I got a job at Elf Café, cooking.

Julia: Did you have experience working in restaurants before that job?

Eden: No, I was just good friends with the owner, Scott. We talked about food all the time. I told him I wouldn’t leave until he gave me a job, and I became the sous chef, garde manger.

Julia: Tell me about the transition from the artist to chef? You managed to step away from the studio, but remain part of the art community, by serving your friends and colleagues your cookery.

Eden: I made art before I cooked, but people kept hiring me to do food-related projects — artists would ask me to cater video shoots, or Night Gallery asked me to cater their Seder, but I never thought of it as a business until recently. Making and serving food is the most humble thing you can do. What I do now is basic, it’s about nourishment. There isn’t enough room in the world for everyone to be a professional artist, but we all have to eat.

Julia: What were some of your favorite art projects?

Eden: I photographed a group of people who practice Laughter Yoga —

J: I went to a Laughing Yoga class once! I love laughing so much, it is basically the only reason I have ever done drugs.

Eden: Yeah? I have always been interested in sub-cultures, so I just started going to the Laughter Yoga clubs. There is an underlying sadness, some deep, heavy shit, below the surface there. I felt connected to these people though. I made a music video for the band Thank You Rosekind  from the footage I shot at one of the Laughter Yoga clubs.

Julia: And what about the series of photos you did, Eating Alone? 

Eden: Moll Katzen, of Moosewood cookbooks, always said, “you should always make a nice meal for yourself. Whether you are cooking for yourself or a party of ten.” Cooking and taking photos was always something I could do by myself. So, for that series, I cooked myself beautiful meals and took self-portraits.

Julia: And Eden’s Herbals, how did that start?

Eden: The Saps [Eden’s herbal infusion syrups] are a blend of the culinary and the herbal, and the “Smoke” is mostly calming herbs that you can roll into a cigarette, but you could also burn it as incense.Growing up, my mother, a midwife, had friends who were really into herbs and healing plants. That sparked my interest in Nancy Clem, an amazing herbalist. Nancy teaches at UCLA in the art department…she kind of defies definition. I have been shooting a documentary about her, and over time, I have learned more about plants.

Julia: What’s next for you?

Eden: I love to go into people’s homes and make food from what they have lying around in the cupboard. My family are Hungarian immigrants, who are constantly worried that there might not be enough to eat. I am obsessed with avoiding waste. Like my Hungarian grandmother, I enjoy the process of folding things back in. For example, our salad today will be turned into a wrap tomorrow.

I love what Anthony Bourdain is doing, but it makes me realize that there is room in the food world for more women. I want to make an international web series called Cooking with Grandmas, avoiding waste and ensuring second helpings in resourceful Grandmothers’ kitchens worldwide.