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By Becky Krystal

Roast Salmon Niçoise With Creamy Olive Dressing. (Rey Lopez/For The Washington Post; food styling by Carolyn Robb)

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Good Saturday morning. As you’re reading this, I will have just wrapped up a week at the beach with my family. Sun, sand and fun are just what I needed after an especially hectic last few weeks of school and Little League baseball. Rehoboth Beach, Delaware, is our go-to spot, and at this point of the year, there are not many other places I’d want to be.

Then again, Nice, France, sounds, well, pretty nice. That’s the home of the famous dish that inspired food writer Ben Weiner’s Roast Salmon Niçoise With Creamy Olive Dressing. Traditional salade Niçoise typically features tomatoes, hard-boiled eggs, Niçoise olives, tuna, steamed potatoes and green beans, along with fresh mixed greens. This version ups the ante by turning it into an even more substantial but still light main course that employs the oven to roast salmon fillets, yellow potatoes and green beans. Then the other elements are piled onto a sheet pan, which you can serve family-style to let everyone build their own bowl or plate.

It manages to be elegant and playful at the same time, not to mention delicious. It’s also a great template to create your own preferred meal. You can mix up the vegetables and proteins as you like — even just the eggs would be filling enough.

Food writer Kristen Hartke’s Pan-Roasted Eggplant would be another enticing option for summer entertaining. Crispy eggplant is delicious but can be tricky to nail. Hartke encourages us to just lean into the softer side of this seasonal produce, and here she does that by cooking the eggplant with lots of olive oil in a skillet on the stovetop. It really does eat like a soft, ripened cheese, so all you need to do is sprinkle it with a bit of flaky salt and spread it on toasted slices of baguette. Set it out as a unique appetizer with a chilled bottle of wine.

If grilling is more your entertaining style, Ellie Krieger has you covered. Her Spinach and Feta Turkey Burgers turn what can otherwise be a boring, lean meat into something truly luscious (but still nutritious). She achieves this with a filling of sautéed spinach and feta cheese, and a topping of a lemony dill yogurt sauce. I’m not typically a burger person (especially of the beef variety), but this one won me over.

I took this past week off our live cooking chat, but I’ll be back at it Thursday at 11 a.m. Eastern. Submit your questions now, then return when I start the conversation.

Until next week, happy cooking.

Pan-Roasted Eggplant

(Rey Lopez/For The Washington Post; food styling by Carolyn Robb)

While many recipes fixate on the best way to achieve crispy eggplant, this recipe bypasses the effort entirely by turning the vegetable into silken rounds cooked on the stovetop.

Kristen Hartke

Spinach and Feta Turkey Burgers

Roast Salmon Niçoise With Creamy Olive Dressing

Recipe of the week

Rey Lopez/For The Washington Post; food styling by Carolyn Robb

Roast Salmon Niçoise With Creamy Olive Dressing

Find substitution suggestions and other tips below the recipe.

Save or print the recipe

Make ahead: The dressing can be prepared and refrigerated up to 1 day in advance, though it may oxidize and lose some of its original color.

Storage: Refrigerate the salad components separately for up to 2 days.

Servings: 4 to 6

Active time: 20 mins

Total time: 1 hour 10 mins

Ingredients

One (1 1/2-to-2-pound) center-cut skinless salmon fillet, cut into 2 pieces
Fine salt
1/4 cup olive oil
1 1/2 pounds baby yellow potatoes, halved
4 large eggs, at room temperature
8 ounces green beans, trimmed
Freshly ground black pepper
1 large shallot, thinly sliced
3/4 cup (about 4 ounces) Castelvetrano olives, drained and coarsely chopped
1/2 cup plain Greek yogurt (any fat level)
3 tablespoons white wine vinegar, plus more as needed
Generous 1 teaspoon orange zest (from 1 orange)
Scant 1/4 cup fresh orange juice (from the same orange)
1 tablespoon fresh flat-leaf parsley, coarsely chopped
2 mini cucumbers, cut into large chunks using the roll cut (see tips, below)
1 cup (5 ounces) grape or cherry tomatoes, halved
1/2 cup (about 3 ounces) Niçoise or Kalamata olives, drained and smashed
1 small head red or green leaf lettuce (8 ounces), rinsed and separated into leaves (torn, if large)

Steps

1. Position a rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 400 degrees. Season the two pieces of salmon with salt, and let it sit for 20 minutes at room temperature. Pour the oil onto a large sheet pan and tilt to coat. Add the potatoes, cut side down, in an even layer, then season with salt and roast for 20 minutes, until just starting to turn golden at the edges.

2. Prepare a small bowl of ice water. Bring a small pot of water to a boil over high heat, then using a slotted spoon, gently lower the eggs into the water. For a soft-boiled egg, cook for 7 minutes. Carefully transfer the eggs to the ice water for 5 minutes, then peel and slice each in half lengthwise. (Reserve the ice water for the shallots, below.)

3. Remove the pan from the oven and push the potatoes to one side. Add the green beans to the center of the pan. Pat the salmon dry and place directly next to the green beans, furthest from the potatoes. Season all of the components on the pan with black pepper, return the pan to the oven and roast for another 15 to 20 minutes, until the salmon flakes easily when pressed with the tines of a fork and is slightly pinkish-red in the center (for medium-rare) or opaque (for more done). The potatoes should be golden in color and fork-tender, and the green beans crisp-tender.

4. Add the sliced shallot to the bowl of ice water (replenishing with ice, as needed) for 5 minutes to mellow out.

5. In a small food processor, pulse the Castelvetrano olives until finely chopped, about 30 seconds. Add the yogurt, vinegar, orange zest and juice, and parsley, and blend until smooth. The yield is about 1 1/2 cups. Taste, and season with salt, pepper and more vinegar, if desired.

6. When the salmon is done, let the pan cool for about 5 minutes, then break each piece of salmon into two or three pieces. Let rest another 5 minutes, then scatter the eggs, shallot, cucumbers, tomatoes, Niçoise olives and lettuce onto the pan, nestling them among the potatoes, salmon and green beans. Serve, family-style, with the dressing dolloped on top or served alongside.

From food writer Ben Weiner. Tested by Becky Krystal.

Nutrition information per serving, based on 6: Calories: 501; Total Fat: 28 g; Saturated Fat: 5 g; Cholesterol: 189 mg; Sodium: 621 mg; Carbohydrates: 29 g; Dietary Fiber: 8 g; Sugar: 6 g; Protein: 32 g.

Substitution suggestions + other tips and ideas:

Shallot >> red onion.
Mini cucumber >> English cucumber.
Red or green leaf lettuce >> other crunchy lettuce.
White wine vinegar >> cider or sherry vinegar.
Baby yellow potatoes >> other baby waxy potatoes or fingerlings.
Greek yogurt >> regular yogurt or nondairy yogurt.
A roll, or oblique, cut creates pieces with two angled sides. Hold the knife at about a 45-degree angle from the cucumber and make one diagonal cut. Rotate the cucumber a quarter-turn (90 degrees) and repeat all the way down the length of the vegetable.