Tuna Fish Sandwiches!

[Ari]

My family's tuna salad was always made with cottage cheese instead of mayo. Anybody else ever heard of this? Maybe it was a health thing. It was good, though I've never made it for myself - mostly because I never have cottage cheese in the house.

[John Whiting]

I used to eat cottage cheese when I was on a low-cal diet. Problem was, I liked it so much that I would eat the whole carton at once, thus making it a hi-cal diet.

[Purrkins]

Was just browsing the topics and saw the tuna fish sandwiches, and had to stick my oar in the water.

My mom started making tuna this way after reading Adele Davis' "Let's Eat Right to Keep Fit". I don't recall seeing the recipe in the book, but it's stuck with me ever since.

Tuna into a bowl, pour on enough Kretchmer's Wheat Germ to cover the tuna, big squeeze of lemon juice, and enough Hellman's to bind it together, stirring briskly with a fork to break up the tuna...then you gotta taste it to see if there's enough lemon juice to give it some tang.

Now, spread it thickly on good multi-grain or crusty bread, and then slice kosher dills thinly lengthwise and lay 'em on top of the tuna.

Yum!

For an added treat, seed and finely chop a fresh habanero or two and mix in.

Yum - ow!

[winesonoma]

Tuna with sweet and tart apples light mayo with thin sliced swiss "your choice" on toasted raisin bread. and a fat one; bring back the sixties.

Edited June 23, 2004 by winesonoma (log)

[ruthcooks]

Tuna is a childhood thing...my mother took two cans of tuna in oil (back then that's the only way it came), squeezed in the juice of half a lemon, and slathered it with Miracle Whip. Any kind of tuna except grated--thank heavens they don't seem to make that catfood stuff anymore. We ate it on hamburger buns--don't know why, because we ate hamburgers on bread.

Nowadays, I use the foil packages--much more taste than canned IMO--of tuna in whatever oil it comes in, lots of lemon juice and Hellmann's. Usually eaten on some kind of wheat or oat bread.

No pickles. No tasteless, water-packed tuna.

Oh, and my idea of a tuna melt? Use above mix, top with cheese and LOTS OF GRILLED ONIONS, between two slices of bread buttered on the outside, grilled. That's the way I first ate it and can't imagine it without the onions and grilling. Those of you who caramelize onions could sub them for grilled onions. It's all about the onions.

[snowangel]

Tuna with peanut butter.

I'd never in a million years have thought of that. And it doesn't sound particularly tasty. But you're the second person on this thread to mention it, so clearly I've got to give it a try. It sounds like a perfect way to take something basically good for me and make it really fattening. Something I always appreciate.

Peter (age 8, still) the first person mentioned with the Tuna/PB idea, had one for lunch. I just had a plain tuna salad sandwich on toasted Acme. I use either oil-packed (from the wedge) or the vaccuum packed stuff. Mayo, celery, onion, whatever else strikes my fancy.

This thread is reminding me of someone I once worked with. She spoke of taking "scent of tuna" sandwiches to school for lunch. There were 11 kids in the family. In the morning, her mom would make tuna salad. Slater on bread, whipe off. Slater and whipe on second sandwich, and so on. The mom also added 1/3 of a leaf of iceburg to each sandwich. 11 kids, one can of tuna. My sandwiches are thicker.

[carswell]

A now-defunct Montreal takeout counter served a tuna sandwich that was breathtaking in its simplicity: a six-inch length of baguette split lengthwise; the bottom half covered with the lightly drained contents of a can of Italian olive oil-packed tuna; the tuna topped with five pitted Moroccan black olives placed at one-inch intervals; the top half of the bread smeared with homemade harissa. (It was breathtaking, too, when they overdid the harissa.) Every other tuna sandwich now seems like overkill.

[Marco_Polo]

This thread has brought back, from the deepest mists of time, my worst tuna sandwich memory. It was in my senior year at high school in Worthington, Ohio, when some friends and I forged notes to play hooky and drove down to watch Cincinnati's Big Red Machine in the newly built Riverfront Stadium (in the days of Pete Rose and Johnny Bench, that's how long ago it was - and no I was not, never was, never will be a Reds fan; having been raised in the Bay Area, I was, am, and always will be a Giants fan, even though I rarely get a chance to follow baseball these days).

Someone, it might well have been me, in fact it probably was me, made some tuna sandwiches - delicious, just as described above, white bread with lots of mayo, finely chopped pickles, mebbe a bit of finely chopped celery, dash of French's 'mustard', definitely an immense amount of black pepper (very important). We watched the game and ate the sandwiches, probably a hot dog or two as well. But on the drive back home, first one of us, then another, began to feel queasy. "Pull over quick!" Uh oh, uh oh, too late: an explosion of regurgitated tuna fish all over my friend's mother's Ford Mustang (at the time, about the coolest car in existence). And so the journey continued in starts and stutters, a few miles further, quick, pull over, time for someone else to um er...This was the most gut wrenching, writhing, uncontrollably painful nausea I've ever experienced. I honestly believe we all thought we were going to die: in fact, it would have been a relief to do so, it was almost that bad! This must have been full blown botulism poisoning from a contaminated can. It was truly horrible and I'll never forget it! That Mustang was totally trashed by the time we got back and we had to explain to our parents, and later the school, where we'd been. Believe me, it was a long time before I enjoyed a tuna sandwich again (though I'll quite happily eat one now, though more out of nostalgia then choice).

May I also state, while we're on the subject, categorically and unconditionally, that hot tuna is one of the most disgusting foods on earth. I can think of nothing worse, nothing more likely to bring me instantly to the point of nausea, then the mere smell of canned tuna fish, heated up on an open sandwich - the combination of hot tuna and melted cheese is utterly horrendous and inedible - or, even worse, canned tuna in a pasta sauce...

Now fresh tuna - especially thon rouge from the French Basque country - is one of the greatest foods on earth, simply grilled like a steak over charcoal and served still rare and bloody in the middle...

And a real salade niçoise, made not with canned but with fresh tuna...certainly one of the great summer foods of the world.

But hot canned tuna? Forget it. I'd rather try tuna and peanut butter...Um er, on second thoughts, come to think of it, maybe not.

MP

[cakes]

Tuna is a childhood thing...my mother took two cans of tuna in oil (back then that's the only way it came), squeezed in the juice of half a lemon, and slathered it with Miracle Whip. Any kind of tuna except grated--thank heavens they don't seem to make that catfood stuff anymore. We ate it on hamburger buns--don't know why, because we ate hamburgers on bread.

Nowadays, I use the foil packages--much more taste than canned IMO--of tuna in whatever oil it comes in, lots of lemon juice and Hellmann's. Usually eaten on some kind of wheat or oat bread.

No pickles. No tasteless, water-packed tuna.

Oh, and my idea of a tuna melt? Use above mix, top with cheese and LOTS OF GRILLED ONIONS, between two slices of bread buttered on the outside, grilled. That's the way I first ate it and can't imagine it without the onions and grilling. Those of you who caramelize onions could sub them for grilled onions. It's all about the onions.

Grated tuna, ugh! When I was a bachelor I would make tuna sandwiches and mash up the nice big chunks. So I thought why spend the money if I am just going to mash the tuna up anyway so I bought grated. Cat food is a very good way to describe it although a lot of cats I have known would not eat it.

Cakes

[jeniac42]

I eat canned tuna fish at least once a week, usually more. I have been known to eat it straight out of the can (and have discovered, by the way, that this is the only thing I know of that isn't improved by the addition of sriracha - just tastes more metallic).

Growing up we never had tuna salad, just oil-packed tuna on squishy white bread. No condiments or vegetables. Sometimes I still crave this and then I eat it and wonder why.

I like tuna salad with mayo and relish; tuna salad with mayo, hard-boiled egg, chopped dill pickles, and onion; tuna salad with mayo, onion, and celery. I also really like the tuna salad I found in Mark Bittman's book (tuna, olive oil, lime juice, cilantro, habanero sauce) but I find it doesn't hold very well.

Tuna with cannelini beans, sage, red wine vinegar, and olive oil is also very good.

Chicken of the Sea is advertising, as mentioned earlier, chunkier tuna - and it is. It's much better, and I like it better than the pouches (which I previously enjoyed due to their less-pre-flaked nature).

Now I am hungry and should go get one of the approximately 25 cans of tuna out of the pantry and eat it.

[phaelon56]

The appeal to me of the second sort is the same as the appeal of a heated crab dip

heated crab dip is all wrong as well.

So that's why it tastes so damn good. I always wondered about that...

Prior to spotting this thread, I just made tuna salad for the first time in years. I've always like chopped celery in mine but have reached the conclusion that it should be added at the time the tuna is to be served - when I store tuna salad overnight with chopped cerely in it the whole thing gets way too watery.

My latest take was to use a big spoonful of home-made chow-chow ( a pickled vegetable relish popular in the South), drained of its liquid, added into a can of white albacire that had been drained and throughly flaked/fluffed with a fork. Threw in some chopped cornichons, S&P and turmeric. Very good although red onion would have been nice if I'd had soime available.

[reesek]

i've been taking tuna salad to the extreme since i discovered freshly canned alaskan albacore. this stuff is so good. for $4.50 a can - it better be. it makes wonderful mayo-free tuna salad (chopped parsley, shallot, serrano, cornichon, red vinegar, olive oil, s&p) and awesome thai tuna salad (cilantro, lemon, lots of chili paste, oil, s&p) serve with wedges of cabbage and beer.

tuna melts rule - but they have to be made properly. i can't believe no one else grew up with my mother who instead of draining the can of tuna correctly instead gave it one half-hearted squeeze over the sink before dumping it and most of its (starkist chunk light) water into a bowl. blech. most commercial tuna (at my work cafeteria, and lesser establishments) suffer from my mother's affliction.

poor drainage ruins even the best tuna.

[irodguy]

Depends on what I feel like.

Either:

Water Packed

Crushed Garlic

Minced Ginger

Lemon Juice

Light Mayo

Japanese Chili Oil

or

Italian Oil Packed

Crushed Garlic

Olives

Fresh Rosemary

Fresh Oregano

Onion

On Fresh Foccacia

[patti]

The usual method is drained oil packed tuna, chopped hard boiled eggs, mayo, mustard, chopped scallions, chopped sweet pickles, and lots and lots of black pepper. Served on either very fresh white bread (and Lay's potato chips are a must as an accompaniment), or a good rye bread, sans Lay's.

A few years ago I went on a kick of adding fennel seeds to the mix. I'm over it.

[Mayhaw Man]

The usual method is drained oil packed tuna, chopped hard boiled eggs, mayo, mustard, chopped scallions, chopped sweet pickles, and lots and lots of black pepper. Served on either very fresh white bread (and Lay's potato chips are a must as an accompaniment), or a good rye bread, sans Lay's.

A few years ago I went on a kick of adding fennel seeds to the mix. I'm over it.

I like a good crunchy chip (Zapp's regular) ON the sandwich. In fact, I may have one today.

[Greatbigsea]

Ok, this thread is the one to pull me out of my lurkdom. While I too enjoy the "classic", ie White bread and Hellmans, I like to think that the one that I now seek out as my comfort food is a bit better for me. Take the water packed tuna, and mix it with a bunch of thawed peas (I thaw them by putting them in a colander and running hot water over them, and then cold water, as hot tuna is not my thing ) Make sure everything is well drained. Mix in curry powder and whatever other spices suit ya and then enough Hellmans to moisten, then put it on toasted bread with a slice of cheese. MMMMMMMM. Guess what I am having for lunch!!

[Mayhaw Man]

a bunch of thawed peas

Welcome to eGullet. I hope that you remain out of the closet and get to know the site a bit.

Visualize Whirled Peas

[patti]

I like a good crunchy chip (Zapp's regular) ON the sandwich. In fact, I may have one today.

Mmm, Zapp's. I like chips on the sandwich, too, but haven't indulged in years. I might indulge in some tuna salad later today, though.