the tuna melt

[Maison Rustique]

Kit, just another at you!

Ducky, we do get along well don't we! We need to find a place somewhere between SD and OC to meet for a tuna melt!! And maybe we can even get Kit to venture down this way so we can show her what a tuna melt is all about!!

[Shirley U. Jest]

What a surprise to see this thread. I made a tuna melt last night for the kid and I. I used sour cream, and cream cheese, and cooked bacon. baked it up real hot and bubbly and then served it on toasted rye for me, and toasted english for him. I told him, "we used to eat this in our school cafeteria when I your age."

Kids love this stuff. (so do adults) LOL!

[glenn]

I agree, tuna melts in my mind are an open sandwich and I never came across one that wasn't. One of the reasons I resisted the idea of adding one to the menu was because it simply isn't practical to serve an open faced sandwich. Not only do I not use an oven, but I am not permitted to. In my mind, a sandwich is the next best thing and is really not all that different. Perhaps it's even better when you put it on a quality panini press. However, is it wrong to call it a tuna melt?

[Pam R]

I agree, tuna melts in my mind are an open sandwich and I never came across one that wasn't.  One of the reasons I resisted the idea of adding one to the menu was because it simply isn't practical to serve an open faced sandwich.  Not only do I not use an oven, but I am not permitted to.

I think of them as open faced too... can you use a finishing oven? Like a salamander ... doesn't require a hood, just a 220V plug. Or as this website calls them cheese melters ... or this one looksclose to the one I have..

[snowangel]

[ Everyone likes their tuna salad with different additions.  It'd be interesting to take a poll on tuna preparation, asking what people's cultural and geographical backgrounds are.   

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There are (at least) 3 topics in Cooking on Tuna Salad:

Fave Tuna Salad Recipes

Pickles in Tuna Salad

Tuna Salad

And one in General Food Topics Best Conglomeration for Tuna Sandwiches

Who knew that this humble food could inspire just fanatical feeling?

[Maison Rustique]

No, no, no, no! Tuna melts need a top and a bottom!! And both sides need to be grilled. Is this a regional thing? I'm from the mid-west and there, tuna melts were/are always 2-sided. Same here in Southern California. I can't recall if I ever had one in Boston. Anyone there that can chime in?

[snowangel]

Is this a regional thing? I'm from the mid-west and there, tuna melts were/are always 2-sided.

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Every tuna melt I've seen in Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska has been open-faced.

[MGLloyd]

Tuna melts in the Pacific NW are open-faced.

[Maison Rustique]

Every tuna melt I've seen in Minnesota, Iowa and Nebraska has been open-faced.

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OK, I'll be back In Kansas City for 2 weeks very soon. I'll have a tuna melt there and see if I'm still right.

[KatieLoeb]

Wow! I didn't mean to start such a controversy. I'd just never seen a Tuna Melt any other way but open faced. My experience with tuna melts being in the greater New York and greater Philadelphia metropolitan areas.

Carry on...

[mizducky]

Ducky, we do get along well don't we!  We need to find a place somewhere between SD and OC to meet for a tuna melt!!  And maybe we can even get Kit to venture down this way so we can show her what a tuna melt is all about!! 

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Heh. Considering the current state of my bank account, a tuna melt is probably about the level of dining I can afford right now.

Meanwhile, as to open vs. closed ... thinking back, I seem to have had them both ways. Can't recall whether there was a regional component. When I make 'em, I make 'em open, simply because I like to pile on the tuna et al. But I actually think a panini-press closed tuna melt would be pretty fab, especially if you can get it to seal closed all around the edges so it turns into a pocket fulla fishy goodness.

[glenn]

re: open-faced vs. closed - I had no complaints or remarks about this controversial [!!] area when I served it closed as a special this past weekend. Regardless, I really really like the way our grill cooks it as a closed sandwich. I was just wondering if I needed to change the name from "tuna melt" to "tuna melt ala melt" or something .

[Verjuice]

Never, ever seen an open-faced one. Or, rather, never ordered or made them that way. Do you use a knife and fork if it's served open-faced? So much of the pleasure, for me, is the textural component: crisp bread, oozing cheese, tender tuna salad. That said, my favorite tuna melt is whichever one I happen to be eating. They're all good.

I used to make mine with tuna salad, which I'd construct any number of ways. The curry suggestion made upthread is a good one, though I've never had it in a melt. When I began my love affair with Italian oil-packed ventresca tuna, I did away with tuna salad and started adding the salad components separately. Not for any reason other than the fact the fatty belly tuna is sublime on its own and at that price I hesitate to break the beautiful, fragile fillets into smaller pieces. That said, I usually delicately dress the tuna with the mayonnaise-based condiment and leave it at that. In the past, I've used homemade tartar sauce, pesto, aioli, and wasabi mayonnaise.

I encourage you to give oil-packed tuna a whirl. It preserves the tuna's subtle, buttery flavor while eliminating the pronounced fishiness that the water-packed kind has. Also, the texture is so much better; satiny, tender, never grainy or mushy. I'll never go back to the waterlogged stuff.

Best tuna melts I've had in restaurants have involved bread that has been thoughtfully chosen; not too thick, appropriately buttered etc. Rye is good if it marries well with the other flavors, such as the horseradish havarti and pickle. That sounds really great. I'd skip the fruit and nut additions unless you plan on offering more than one tuna melt on the menu. You can always add funny stuff to tuna salad but you can't take it away. Experiment. Can you set out sample spoonfuls of three or four different tuna salads and see what folks think? You might try asking your regulars., too.

Glenn, will you offer flexible options for the types of cheese and bread one can have with the tuna melt, or are you sticking with a daily special?

[kitwilliams]

Kit, just another    at you! 

Ducky, we do get along well don't we!  We need to find a place somewhere between SD and OC to meet for a tuna melt!!  And maybe we can even get Kit to venture down this way so we can show her what a tuna melt is all about!! 

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yeah, yeah, yeah. raz me all you want. but i just WON'T do tuna without my hint of sweetness. these days I tend to chop up bread and butter pickles instead of using relish. they're crunchier. and when i'm mixing the mayonnaise, i always pour in a touch of the pickle juice (am i totally grossing all you "no sweet pickles in the tuna" folk out now????)

and snowangel is right. who knew that tuna could stir up so much emotion. i'm renaming tuna:

Passion Fish!

[rlibkind]

If you really want to get weird, add chopped beets for a really rosy red tuna salad. (Works better with ham salad than tuna!)

[melkor]

For me the key ingredients for a tuna melt are texture and temperature – the tuna should be creamy but room temp, the bread warm and crispy along with the gooey melted cheese. A ton of butter doesn’t hurt either. Here’s how I make a tuna melt:

Italian tuna packed in olive oil chopped after reserving the oil. Whiz the oil into mayo with an egg, some mustard powder, and a touch of lemon juice add the mayo to the tuna. Add some minced shallot, garlic, dill, parsley, and the zest from the lemon you used to make the mayo. A little salt, pepper, mustard powder, and paprika and mix the whole mess together. Melt some butter in a skillet and toss two slices of moderately open crumb bread in the butter, flip when the bread starts to brown, remove when both sides are lightly brown and crisp. Cover one slice of bread with sliced emmentaler cheese and stick it under the broiler until its bubbly and delicious. Assemble your sandwich, remembering the most important step - cutting the completed sandwich in half.

[racheld]

OOOH! This thread is getting WAY too graphic. The censors are gonna fall on us like a tonna bricks if this porn gets any more vivid. I'll have to go find my best funeral-home fan if this keeps up much longer.

This will tone it down a bit. In the Deep South OLD social set, the tuna salad is made with boiled eggs, apples, sweet pickles and a dusting of powdered sugar in the mayo.

It is served in tiny crusts-trimmed sandwiches, and daintly consumed by behatted ladies with their purses firmly over their arms. They wouldn't recognize a tuna melt if it came wrapped in organza.

And no white shoes after Labor Day.

That's better. It's much cooler in here now.

Edited September 13, 2005 by racheld (log)

[Jensen]

Tuna melts were on the table at lunch today:

[mizducky]

This will tone it down a bit.  In the Deep South OLD social set, the tuna salad is made with boiled eggs, apples, sweet pickles and a dusting of powdered sugar in the mayo. 

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

Joking! I repeat, just joking!

(*Powdered* sugar, though? Wow. That really does kinda blow my mind a little.)

[Curlz]

In the Deep South OLD social set, the tuna salad is made with boiled eggs, apples, sweet pickles and a dusting of powdered sugar in the mayo. 

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As my niece would say, "EWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWWW! That's yucky."

[Maison Rustique]

This will tone it down a bit.  In the Deep South OLD social set, the tuna salad is made with boiled eggs, apples, sweet pickles and a dusting of powdered sugar in the mayo. 

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<thud>

[glenn]

Glenn, will you offer flexible options for the types of cheese and bread one can have with the tuna melt, or are you sticking with a daily special?

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You can't get more flexible than me . [i just made a BLT for someone on our grill.] I just added the tuna melt to our regular menu (on the website only for now.) You can choose any two of the 12 cheeses we regularly offer. Plus we'll offer a special a few times a week which will include one of the more upscale cheeses that we're doing for special grilled cheese sandwiches. We rotate 3 or 4 upscale cheeses about every 2 weeks.

[KatieLoeb]

This will tone it down a bit.   In the Deep South OLD social set, the tuna salad is made with boiled eggs, apples, sweet pickles and a dusting of powdered sugar in the mayo.  

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AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!

Joking! I repeat, just joking!

(*Powdered* sugar, though? Wow. That really does kinda blow my mind a little.)

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[scooby Doo Voice]Whu-uuuuuuhhhht?????[/scooby Doo Voice]

Powdered sugar??!!??

[MGLloyd]

[scooby Doo voice] Rut roh! [/scooby Doo voice]

[racheld]

You must admit all the hot flashes receded a bit.

Sorry for all the reactions, but 'tis true. The little teeny tunasalad and chicken salad sandwiches I've spread, cut and served would fill three pickup beds and the trunk of a Sedan de Ville.

Hope nobody really fainted. Or gagged.

But thanks for the giggles.