Artichoke and Soft-boiled Egg Salad

Apologies for the lack of updates but I have been in Croatia, first at a conference and then for a short holiday! I was hoping to write a long post about Croatian food, but while it was all very fresh and delicious, the Northern Dalmatian cuisine was not particularly innovative or exciting. Mostly it was grilled fish or squid served with a simple salad, and potatoes or fries, or pizza with any sort of random topping - we even had one with kidney beans!

So when we returned we'd had that typical holiday experience where the only vegetables you've managed to eat for a week are the side salads, and you start to feel just a teensy bit scurvy. So we had a big salad of all sorts of tasty things, with a strong storecupboard emphasis as we're preparing to move house!

Ingredients:

• a 400g tin of artichoke hearts
• 10-12 baby plum tomatoes
• 200g fine green beans
• a large handful of basil
• 5-6 baby new potatoes
• 2-3 eggs
• 3 tbsp olive oil
• 1 1/2 tsp dijon mustard
• 2 tbsp red or white wine vinegar

Set the tin draining in the sink. Scrub the potatoes and simmer gently for 15 minutes until tender. Get a pan of water simmering and then lower the eggs into it, and cover. Count out one minute on a timer, and then remove the pan from the heat and leave for a further seven minutes, after which you should drain the eggs and cool them, then peel and slice into quarters. (If I could cook the eggs at exactly 57 C as per Molecular Gastronomy, I would!) 

Cut the beans into bite-size pieces and blanch in boiling water for a few minutes, until bright green and sweet, but not soggy. Slice the tomatoes into halves and the artichoke hearts into quarters, and put in a large salad bowl. Tear in the basil. Add the potatoes and cooked beans, and season with salt and pepper. Combine the dressing ingredients in a jar, then pour almost all of it over the salad, then toss well. Lay the soft-boiled egg quarters on top and add the rest of the dressing.