Tuna Niçoise Ramen Bowl
Salade Niçoise is the dish that made me understand that a salad can be a real meal, which sounds like a low bar but at the time was genuinely revelatory. It has tuna, it has eggs, it has green beans and olives and tomatoes and a sharp vinaigrette, and it has the specific confidence of a dish that knows it doesn't need to be hot to be substantial. The debate about whether traditional Niçoise uses cooked or raw ingredients, and whether oil-packed tuna counts, and whether potatoes are permitted, is one of the more sustained arguments in French food culture and you should know it exists even as you ignore it entirely. This bowl puts everything into ramen noodles and calls it done. No one in Nice has approved this, but the vinaigrette is right and the eggs are perfect and it works.
Niçoise olives rest—tuna breaks apart in oil—Riviera in cold
Let Me Tell You...
The specific pleasure of Niçoise is that every component is good on its own and better with the others, which sounds obvious but is actually hard to achieve in a composed salad.
The olives are salty.
The egg is rich.
The green beans are bright and slightly grassy.
The tuna is oily and substantial.
The vinaigrette ties all of them together and makes them into a single thing instead of a pile of separate ingredients.
The ramen noodles add to this logic rather than disrupting it, because noodles have always been the best vehicle for vinaigrette.
The quality of the tuna is the quality of the bowl.
Jarred Italian or Spanish tuna is worth the extra cost here.
The soft-boiled egg is the component that requires the most attention, which is annoying because soft-boiled eggs are conceptually simple and technically precise.
Six minutes and thirty seconds in boiling water, then immediately into ice water, peeled cold.
That's the recipe.
The margin for error is about a minute in either direction before you have a hard-boiled egg or a runny one, and neither of those is what you want on a Niçoise.
Set a timer.
This gives you consistent timing from egg to egg.
Haricots verts, the thin French green beans, are the right bean for this bowl because they're more delicate than regular green beans and they stay crisp when served cold.
They need to be blanched and shocked in ice water, which is the same procedure as the egg but without the precision requirement.
They should be bright green and have some snap to them.
If they're limp and dull, they were cooked too long.
Salting the blanching water aggressively seasons them at the cellular level.
The Dijon vinaigrette is four ingredients and the most important element of the bowl.
It should taste sharp and a little aggressive on its own, because the other components will soften it.
If you taste it and think it's perfect, add a little more vinegar.
Ingredients
- 8 ounces dried ramen noodles (2 bricks, seasoning packets discarded)
- 2 cans (5 oz each) high-quality oil-packed tuna, drained
- 4 large eggs
- 6 ounces haricots verts (thin French green beans), trimmed
- 1 cup cherry tomatoes, halved
- 1/3 cup Niçoise or Kalamata olives, pitted
- 2 tablespoons capers, drained
- For vinaigrette: 3 tablespoons olive oil, 1.5 tablespoons red wine vinegar, 1 teaspoon Dijon mustard, 1 small shallot (minced), 1/2 teaspoon kosher salt, black pepper to taste
- Fresh tarragon or flat-leaf parsley, for serving
Preparation
- Bring a pot of heavily salted water to a boil. Lower eggs gently into boiling water and cook for 6 minutes 30 seconds exactly. Transfer to an ice bath immediately. Let cool 5 minutes, then peel and halve.
- In the same boiling water, blanch haricots verts for 2 minutes until bright green and crisp-tender. Transfer immediately to ice water. Drain and pat dry.
- Cook ramen noodles in boiling salted water for 2-3 minutes until just tender. Drain and rinse under very cold water until completely cool.
- Make the vinaigrette: Whisk together olive oil, red wine vinegar, Dijon, shallot, salt, and pepper in a small bowl until emulsified.
- Toss cold noodles with 2 tablespoons of the vinaigrette in a large bowl. Divide between serving bowls.
- Arrange tuna, halved eggs, haricots verts, cherry tomatoes, olives, and capers in sections over the noodles. Drizzle remaining vinaigrette over everything. Scatter fresh tarragon and add optional toppings. Serve immediately.