One of my favourite salads which works equally well for two people and ten. Most of the ingredients can be prepared in advance and the salad assembled, beautifully, at the last minute. I made it recently, on one of those beautiful summer days we had, for a very important occasion with some of our specialest friends and it hit the spot.

Ingredients

• 2 hard boiled free-range eggs
• 100 g green beans, halved
• 2 sliced and fried (or griddled) courgettes
• 1 ripe avocado, halved and sliced
• 1 Cos lettuce, or 2 little gem, torn into bite-sized pieces
• 12 cherry tomatoes, halved
• 16 black olives
• 185 g tinned or fresh tuna or salmon, flaked
• 8 marinated anchovies
• 2 tbsp red wine vinegar
• 4 tbsp olive oil
• 1/2 tsp grain mustard

Method

Slice the hard boiled eggs. Lightly steam the green beans and refresh in cold water. Arrange together with the courgettes, avocado, lettuce, cherry tomatoes, black olives and fish. Mix together the red wine vinegar, olive oil and mustard with some salt and pepper and drizzle over your beautifully arranged salad.

The sharp-eyed among you will spot the potatoes in the picture. The beauty of this salad is that you can easily add new potatoes for carbivores but low-carbers can leave them out.

Serves 4-6