Cooking off the top of your head, or tuna casserole deconstructed

Last night was one of those, “What ever shall we have for supper?” nights. Christian would be late coming home, Jordan was going to lay out a buffet of leftovers for Jacob, and she wanted pizza. None of that appealed to me. I vacillated, mentally inventorying my pantry—spinach fettucine in lemon butter? Tuna casserole? Tuna salad? Scrambled eggs”

Finally, sitting in the patio with wine, about 6:30, I announced, “I’m making myself a tuna casserole.” Jordan does not like the idea of cooked tuna, but I decided I would have leftovers for a couple of lunches and that would be good.

I’d been reading a Sam Sifton column where he talked about cooking without a recipe—he usually does that on Wednesdays. He’d caught Christian’s attention with his use of the word “slurry.” I looked it up and discovered it is not primarily a cooking term—refers to a liquid with particles in it. Let’s just leave it there. And my neighbor, Mary Dulle, had described how she made gravy for hamburger steak out of onion, butter, demiglace, and pan drippings. I called it cooking off the top of your head.

Not only would I make the tuna casserole without a recipe, it would be a cook-with-what-you-have dish. Wasn’t sure how that spinach fettucine would taste with tuna, but I had some rigatoni. Cooked that (too much, so there’s a bit of naked rigatoni in my fridge) and started on the main part of the casserole. Sautéed diced celery and a sliced green onion in a knob of butter, sprinkled a good Tbsp. of flour over the vegetables and stirred. Then I added enough white wine to make Sifton’s slurry and let it simmer and thicken while the alcohol cooked off.

I was not going to use canned mushroom soup, though I’ve done that all my life with tuna casserole. Lately I’ve read such disdainful comments about canned soups on cooking sites that I decided to improvise. But I didn’t have milk or cream to make a sauce out of the roux. Instead I added a generous Tbsp. each of mayonnaise and sour cream and stirred it all in. Then salt, pepper, a splash of Worcestershire, and a handful of frozen petite peas. Oh, and don’t forget the tuna—good quality albacore in water, drained and flaked right into the skillet. And add that pasta that’s been draining and cooling (I discovered my small vegetable steamer is great for draining everything from fruit to pasta—thanks to daughter Megan for that idea.)

This all went into a medium-sized Corningware dish. No French’s fried onion rings either—grated sharp cheddar under a generous sprinkling of crushed Ritz crackers.

All this was easy to do on my hot plate and then in my toaster oven. And it tasted so delicious—I can hardly wait for lunch today.

Ingredients (you’re on your own for measurements):

Pasta of your choice

Butter

Celery

Green onion

White wine

Sour cream

Mayonnaise

Tuna

Petite green peas

Worcestershire

Salt and pepper

Sharp cheddar, grated

Ritz cracker crumbs

            Bake at 350 for 20-25 minutes or until heated through and crumb topping is golden.