One of the most renewed traditional dishes of Nice is certainly the delicious Salade Niçoise, composed of many different ingredients, such as anchovies, tuna, boiled eggs and fresh vegetables. Perfect for the warm days, the ingredients of this salad may vary according to the season and to suit everyone’s taste.
Pan Bagnat is the street-food version of the Salade Niçoise: a multi-layered sandwich composed of pain de campagne or round white bread, and filled with the typical ingredients from the Salade Niçoise.
Its name means “wet bread”, referring to the use of olive oil and vinaigrette, or alternatively balsamic vinegar, which soften the bread.
Pan bagnat is a popular dish in Nice and in the whole region of Provence: it can easily be found in most French bakeries and street markets. One of its best characteristics is that it can be made one day in advance, so that it will be perfect and soft when you eat it the following day.
There is no one right way to prepare pan bagnat, as the ingredients usually vary. We chose the recipe of pan bagnat presented by Julia Child and Jacques Pepin.
Ingredients
- pain de campagne or round white bread
- lettuce
- Brie cheese
- Niçoise black olives
- 1 tomato
- anchovies (or alternatively sardines or tuna) in olive oil
- onion
- extra-virgin olive oil
- vinegar
- salt
Method
- Cut the round bread in half horizontally, and pour some extra-virgin olive oil on the bottom slice.
- Arrange a first layer of lettuce, then add some thin slices of Brie cheese, the black olives, thin slices of tomato, and the anchovies.
- While composing the sandwich, add some vinaigrette, which you can make by mixing olive oil, vinegar, a teaspoon of chopped onion and salt.
- Finally, wrap the pan bagnat and let it rest in a cool place for at least two hours, ideally overnight, before serving it.
Feel free to add other ingredients to your pan bagnat, such as boiled eggs or fresh vegetables.
Giulia Luzi
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