This beautiful French salad usually goes with tuna. For some reason I didn’t put any. Maybe because it already looked gorgeous. Maybe I didn’t care. Maybe I JUST FORGOT.

What this crowd-pleasing salad takes is just time to prepare ingredients – cut, cook (if required) and dress individually and set it up presentably.

Ingredients (serves 4):
Dressing
Juice from half a lemon
1 cup extra virgin olive oil
1 small shallot, minced
2 garlic, minced
1 tablespoon thyme, minced
1 tablespoon oregano, minced
1 tablespoon honey
1 teaspoon Dijon mustard
1 teaspoon anchovy paste
salt and pepper to taste
Salad
1 medium head of red leaf lettuce or butter lettuce, leaves washed and separated
6 small new red potatoes, washed and quartered
1/2 pound French green beans, ends snapped off
2 Roma tomatoes, seeded and diced
1/2 small red onion, sliced
4 hard-boiled eggs, wedged
1/2 cup green pitted olives
2 avocados, diced
1 1/2 cup sweet corn, cooked and cooled

Directions:
Whisk all dressing ingredients. Set aside.
Coat lettuce with dressing. Place lettuce bed on a large salad plate.
Bring potatoes and cold water to boil in a large pot. Cook until tender, around 5 minutes. Remove potatoes from pot, and toss with 2 tablespoons of dressing. Set aside.
Cook green beans in boiling water for 3 minutes, strain and shower under cool water. Let dry and toss with 2 tablespoons of dressing. Set aside.
Individually dress tomatoes and red onion with 1 tablespoon of dressing.
Arrange all salad ingredients onto the lettuce bed.
Drizzle the remaining dressing on top before serving.