Tuna nicoise salad with oozy egg

I make this salad at least once a fortnight.  Tom is sick of it but I still love it so I keep making it.

I can't remember which recipe I started off using but I've modified it along the way to the point where I've perfected it now.

Ingredients:

• 2 baby cos lettuce
• 1 punnet (250g) grape or cherry tomatoes
• handful green beans
• 700g potatoes, quartered or smaller (I just use whatever potatoes I have in the pantry or whatever I buy from the supermarket.  I have no idea if they are the right ones to use or not but I've never had it taste bad based on potato choice)
• 425g can of tuna in olive oil
• 4 fresh* eggs
• about... 10 olives flattened and finely diced
  
  * use fresh eggs because old eggs take about 10 times longer to de-shell and will frustrate the crap out of you

Dressing:

• Extra virgin olive oil
• Red wine vinegar/white wine vinegar/apple cider vinegar/balsamic vinegar
• Wholegrain/sweet wholegrain/dijon mustard
• Salt and sugar

Ok I got yelled at by my sister for putting whole eggs in the same pot as potatoes and beans, but I've never gotten sick from it so is it really that bad (if it is, please let me know!)

So I'm super lazy and will streamline dinner making wherever possible.  So I: 

1. chuck potatoes into boiling water for 6 mins
2. then I add the beans and eggs to the pot for 4 mins
3. then strain potatoes and beans, adding them to the salad bowl.  Run eggs under cold water and then de-shell

You can, more sensibly, put potatoes and beans in one pot and eggs in another pot but if you do this reduce the egg cooking time to 3 mins.

While the pot is boiling away, prepare the ingredients highlighted in italic above.  When everything is in the salad bowl (excluding eggs), dress the salad.  The last thing I do is add the egg to the centre of each plate (1 egg per plate) and pierce it so the egg runs.  Then I add a tiny pinch of salt to the egg itself (OCD but makes it taste SO much better).

This recipe makes enough for Tom and I for dinner plus a lunch for me but Tom eats HEAPS so it would probably be enough for 4 people for dinner.  If it's not quite enough just add more potatoes/beans.

Oh one last thing - the cooking times noted will need to be adjusted based on how large the pieces of potato are and the volume of potatoes.  And with the dressing - I change up the vinegar/mustard combination depending on what I feel like so just do whatever.  One of my faves is mixing red wine vinegar with balsamic.

OH sorry another thing - I did also try this recipe with tuna steaks but it didn't taste anywhere near as good so stick to the canned stuff!

Enjoy!