John's Tunafish Sandwich

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Forget the Croissanwich–ham , turkey, cheese, tuna or chicken salad on a supersized refrigerated croissant is of course a purely American invention- the sandwiches the French do eat are usually served on baguettes and are fairly straightforward . The sandwich jambon beurre, that café staple, is usually made with half a of a very fresh baguette, liberally spread with soft butter and simply layered with ham.
If the French eat something a little more complicated that is served between two slices of bread it is something like the pan bagnat.
The classic pan bagnat is a close relative of the salade nicoise, and is made with a round pain de campagne, which is cut and half, with much of the interior crumb removed. Some recipes call for soaking the crumb with olive oil or a simple vinaigrette and mixing it with the other elements of the sandwich to form a kind of picnic loaf or bread bowl.
Like the salade nicoise, there are no two pan bagnats that are completely alike-some versions contain anchovies or sardines, some are made with tuna, some have raw bell peppers, some have roasted, some are made with a vinaigrette and some with straight olive oil. But a few ingredients are constant in all of them-bread, hard boiled eggs, olives, olive oil, tomatoes and some sort of prepared fish.
A few years ago I dined at Les Olivades in Paris, where every dish in the provencal repertoire was rethought and transformed -the lavender crème brulee was served in a terra cotta dish and the potato puree accompanying the lamb daube heightened with crème fraiche. The chef’s play on pan bagnat was to turn it into a sort of tartine: he toasted a long slice of baguette and covered it with a layer of arugula , then a layer of shaved fennel and fresh pimento (both marinated in a mixture of sherry vinegar and tomato juice ), then hardboiled eggs , then nicoise olives, and finally a few thin slices of rare tuna crusted in herbes de provence.
This version is best made with a fresh baguette. The bread is toasted and brushed with mayonnaise; the roasted peppers are marinated to add another dimension and the eggs are cooked just short of hardboiled to give them a little creaminess, sliced with an egg slicer (you can buy one for a few bucks at the supermarket) and showered with salt and fresh pepper. The tuna, a good quality oliveoil-poached, is further seasoned. The greens are tossed with olive oil and good balsamic vinegar.
NOTES:
- For the tuna , Ortiz oil packed Tuna is the best , or if you can find a good piece of fresh albacore or have the tail or "chain" from a loin of sushi-grade Tuna, poach the fish in oil yourself. The tuna should be submerged in oil ,baked at a low temperature until it’s cooked through and cooled in the oil. A cooked quality oil poached tuna has a fresh flavor and a moist texture. Poor quality tuna tastes fishy and sticks to your teeth.
- If you have some leaves of fresh basil, by all means add it to the arugula salad.