Tuna salad and more

My ideal lunch

Salmon salad at top left, leftover tabouli next to it

fruit salad, with a couple of slices of leftover lamb shish kebab

 

I love tuna salad and go around town testing tuna salad almost any place it’s offered—I feel the same way about potato salad but that’s a different story. My current favorite tuna salad is at the Swiss Pastry Shop. It’s a scoop of tightly packed tuna, mild in flavor, a hint of lemon, and just enough mayonnaise to hold it together, not a bunch of other stuff like pimiento, bell pepper, egg, etc. Just tuna—that’s the way I like it. My idea of salads, be they tuna, salmon, egg or chicken, is purist—I do not, for instance, want pickle in my ham salad. The tuna at McKinley’s runs a close second in my personal salad poll.

I start my salad with that wonderful albacore I get from Pisces in Oregon. When I can I also get salmon from them—it’s not always available. The cans are more expensive, but the couple who own the company fish from their own boat, never with nets, and dolphins swim alongside. The tuna is packed in cans and then cooked once—most tuna you eat is cooked twice. No preservatives, just plain tuna. Both tuna and salmon are available smoked or plain, but I prefer the plain. The salmon is great in croquettes, one of my favorite foods, and the tuna s good for lots of things besides salad—creamed on toast, flaked into hot pasta drizzled with olive oil and topped with Parmesan. Somewhere there’s a book on all the things you can do with tuna.

For tuna salad, because the chunk meat is fairly solid, I give it a whirl in the blender, for an even, flaked base for my salad. Friends said it would just turn to mush, but it honestly doesn’t if you drain it properly.

To one 7 oz. can tuna, flaked, I add:

Juice of one lemon
2 chopped scallions
A squirt of anchovy paste (gives it a tang—careful or you’ll end with anchovy salad)
Just enough mayo to bind—start small and add more if you need it. Jordan and I used to make tuna salad that swam in a soup of lemon juice and mayo, but we’ve gotten over that.
Serve chilled if possible.

I use variations on this formula for other salads. For salmon salad, I skip the blender. Salmon is softer and flakes more easily.

In addition to lemon juice and scallions, I add finely diced cucumber.
And then the mayo.

For ham salad, I buy a slice of boiled ham between ¼ and ½ inch think, cut it in chunks, and flake it in the blender. (I buy a French ham called, in French, Three Pigs—mild and good.)

Add diced scallions and chopped celery to taste
A good squirt of yellow salad mustard
Mayo to bind

I don’t make chicken salad as often, and I’m not sure why. But when I do, I flake the cooked chicken. It’s easy to put a boneless half chicken breast in an oven-proof dish, cover with salt, pepper, and sliced onion rings, put foil over the top, and bake at 325 for half an hour or so until done.)

Cut down on the lemon, using maybe half a lemon
2 chopped scallions
Equal parts sour cream and mayo to blend
Plenty of salt and pepper, which the other salads don’t seem to require.

Egg salad for one

Two-hard boiled eggs—I discovered recently that one of my sons, who eats a lot of hard-boiled eggs, didn’t know to peel them under cold running water. Makes it so much easier. Dice eggs and mix with
Chopped scallions and diced cucumber
Squirt of yellow salad mustard
Mayo
Salt and pepper to taste

My idea of heaven is to  have one of the above every day for lunch—not in a sandwich but on a salad plate.

 

Tuna Salad--love it or hate it!

Tuna salad! I love it. I can tell you what restaurant has the best in town, what the least satisfactory. But the very best is made in my home kitchen.

For years I had a standard recipe: 1 can albacore, lots of lemon juice, a couple chopped scallions, and mayo, with maybe a touch of Dijon. Sometimes it ended up pretty soupy because I used to much lemon juice, but Jordan loved it that way and that’s what Jacob expects of tuna salad to this day. Once in a while we added cottage cheese to it—scrumpsh!

But I’ve made some refinements of late. For one thing I order my tuna from a cannery in Oregon. Two or three years ago I read a food book titled, Jam Today: A Diary of Cooking with What You’ve Got. As the subtitle implies, the author Tod Davies advocates looking in your cupboard instead of rushing out to the store. I know I have several dozen meals in my pantry if I’d ever sort it out. Of course, Davies had one  big advantage—a husband who is an avid organic gardener. So, many nights she simply wandered out into the garden to see what was good. Reminds me of the Central Market cooking class in which the class trails behind the chef as he decides what’s fresh and good in the market that day and then cooks a meal with his picks.

Davies mentioned that she always orders tuna from Pisces Cannery. It’s only available by the case of 24 cans, but I can usually find someone to split with me. I’ve discovered they also have outstanding salmon—but only occasionally, depending on the market. I only have two cans of salmon left and I’m hoarding them. For a brochure, write to Sally Bogardus, Box 812, Coos Bay OR 97420 or call 541-266-7336

 But back to tuna, here’s how I make classic tuna today:

1 7-oz. albacore tuna—shredded in mini processor

Juice of one lemon—I use one of those squeezers that gets every last drop

2 scallions, trimmed and sliced

Just enough mayonnaise to bind (I use whole mayo made with olive oil—I’ve learned that low fat products simply substitute carbs and other bad things—fat becomes the lesser evil)

Optional: One good squirt of anchovy paste. No, you don’t taste anchovies—but it sharpens the taste of the tuna.

 

Eat as salad or serve in tomato, avocado or sandwich, though I avoid the bread--hides the good taste of the tuna.

 

Another tuna salad:

Here’s an old recipe I hadn’t looked at in years but recently made and found it so good I made it again. It’s intended as filling for pasties, but I like it fine just as salad.

1 7 oz. can albacore, broken up with a fork

1 cup shredded cheddar cheese

¼ cup chopped celery

1 Tbsp. chopped parsley

1/3/ cup sour cream (yesterday I had no sour cream so I mixed plain yogurt and mayo—worked fine)

Chill and serve—I liked pickled cucumbers as an accompaniment

 If you want pasties, use

1 8 oz. package biscuits – (I used Crescent rolls)

1 Tbsp. butter melted

 If using biscuits, roll into 4 in. oval; place 1//2 cup tuna mix in each of six biscuits and top with remaining biscuit and seal. Brush with melted butter and let stand 15 minutes. Bake 15-18 minutes at 450 on ungreased cookie sheet. Do not let bottoms burn.

To use Crescent rolls, separate into rectangles, and treat like biscuits. Baking time is about the same but keep an eye on them.