Make the Best Tuna Sandwiches on Earth
Start with Good Tuna, but the Key Ingredient Is Green Onions
Nov 9, 2009
Great tuna fish sandwiches and salads are easy to make with a few key steps toward treating the ingredients. People usually make the mistake of adding too much mayonnaise or not treating the tuna right. Use this recipe for high-quality tuna that will make friends ask you how you did it.
Four Ingredients for Great Tuna
There's only four ingredients to making top-quality tuna sandwich spread for sandwiches or salads.
They are:
- high quality tuna; if you buy canned tuna, get it in water, not oil.
- sweet pickle relish; any brand will do as long as it's thick, or drain excess juice.
- green onions (shallots); or try red onions for variety.
- mayonnaise; use sparingly, can be mixed 50/50 with plain yogurt to cut calories.
Flay That Tuna Fish First
So here's how to make it.
- Drain water from the tuna cans and put the tuna in a bowl or container. Here's they key to the whole thing: With a table knife, flay the tuna into very fine pieces to make the final consistency close to a pate. No big chunks. No strands. Nothing that's going to stick between teeth. Do this before you add any other ingredient.
- Add pickle relish. Be generous, this is a high-volume ingredient. Stir the contents.
- Wash green onions and peel any outer skin layers that are starting to brown or get filmy. Now add onions, chopped fine, using more green stems than white root. Both parts of the onions add their different tastes and consistencies. Stir again.
- Add mayonnaise slowly, stirring it in. Too much mayo will make it too mushy, so use it like a condiment and emulsifier. Not much is needed if you used enough pickle relish.
Those four ingredients can take a recipe far for either tuna sandwich or salad spread, but there's a wide range of other ingredients you can add to zest it up.
Add Jicama, Raisins, or Apple Pieces
- Finely chopped apple pieces or raisins add a sweet contrast to the onions.
- Celery or jicama add some hearty crunch, fiber and augmented flavor.
- Chopped walnuts are a favorite restaurant trick. Just don't overdo them or the recipe becomes a calorie bomb.
For sandwiches, try using only spicy mustard as a condiment, with lettuce and beefsteak tomato slices. For salads, add some orange or tangerine slices, croutons, chow mein noodles and/or other goodies on a bed of iceberg lettuce. For a snack, use as a dip with tortilla chips.
There are endless possibilities and ways to keep from making boring tuna sandwiches and salads. Remember, every recipe started as an experiment.
 |
