the tuna melt

[glenn]

Maybe I'm blind, but I don't see a thread devoted to this earth-shattering topic. We're introducing this to our menu this week and I was curious to see what people's likes and dislikes are.

Admitedly, our tuna salad is nothing out of the ordinary except for the fact we're using good quality tuna (solid white in water.) What I'm hoping will distinguish it is the bread [thick sliced quality pain de mie (white) or multigrain], the variety of cheeses offered (12) and the method of cooking - on a panini press.

We served it as a special all last week with horseradish havarti cheese and it was a big hit.

Comments, suggestions, ideas?

[Malawry]

I once worked in a restaurant where the garde-manger lunch lady made the most amazing tuna salad for family meal. We were using the bits and scraps of fresh tuna from the hot line--whatever got trimmed off, plus whatever was getting too old to sell (I think we froze that stuff until we had enough for family meal). She'd roast it in the oven and then chop it down with celery, carrot, plenty of red onion, and a couple of peeled diced granny smith apples. Add homemade mayo and a touch of sharp dijon. The apple added a slightly tart crisp component that really made the salad.

I happen to be most fond of tuna melts on dark bread with raisins and nuts in it. Rye is a close second. I'm normally a stickler for gruyere cheese, but can also see the horseradish cheese you mention. My problem with tuna melts is, I love lots of crunchy fresh lettuce (butter or lollarossa) and some sliced red onion on my sandwich. So I normally toast the bread instead of melting the cheese on hot tuna.

[Pam R]

Hand's down tuna melts were the most popular menu item when we ran a dairy restaurant. I can't tell you what was in the mix (famly secret) but we made it on a french baguette - sliced lengthwise, with a shmear of garlic butter under the tuna mix and plain old mozz. melted on top.

I've made so many in my time I could make 'em in my sleep

[ludja]

I like tuna melts on almost any type of bread but rye is definately my hands down favorite. Other cheeses (besides cheddar) do sound interesting.

[kitwilliams]

Along the lines of Malawry's tuna melt with raisins in it, my favorite has always had sweet pickle relish in the tuna salad. I think that touch of sweetness, be it relish or raisins or dried cranberries, is pretty tasty. I like it on sourdough.

A local joint (Long Beach, CA) has a tuna/pesto panini. Damn tasty. I was surprised by it initially however I think I recently read (or perhaps I dreamed it) that you can purchase Italian canned tuna in pesto. They use focaccia.

[sadistick]

Mmmm Tuna salad how I love thee...

Theres a great place in town (toronto) called Grano's that makes an awesome tuna sandwich...their key is good tuna, home made mayo, blanched red onion, celery, and a bit of dill and parsley...so good!

[glenn]

Thanks for some interesting ideas. A little caveat - okay, a big one - I have no culinary background. My restaurant experience was back of the house. I used to have an experienced cook who was very imaginative, but that didn't work out. My present cook is more of a line cook - while he's very good at following instructions, it ends there. I never planned on serving anything other than grilled cheese (which I think I'm capable) but I've had to expand out of necessity.

So, I'm going by recipes I see in books and on the net. And from suggestions here. The recipe I'm using simply consists of onions, celery, mayo, lemon and branston pickles. I need to keep it simple because of our limited resources (manpower, storage and equipment.)

Since Malawry brought up the tuna, I'm wondering if I'm using an appropriate tuna... bumble bee solid white in water. I get this wholesale at a fairly decent price.

[btw, tomorrow's tuna melt special is with brandy infused manchego - that could be a tough one since manchego is not a great melting cheese.]

[petite tête de chou]

My mother always made tuna melts on english muffins with a bit of curry added to the tuna mix. Pretty good.

[Curlz]

Ah, the tuna melt...one of my most favorite sandwiches EVER!! Glenn, I've got to say that hearing that there are pickles (or alternately, relish) in tuna turns me off. But that's ME. I'm a big fan of celery, red onion and a good amount of black pepper, but I'm also not a huge salt fan, so I tend to buy low-salt tuna. That said, a friend recently whipped up his recipe, which included all of the above + carrots (!) and mustard. WOWSA. Loved it, and will likely mince up some carrots the next time I make it at home.

As for cheese, my favorite for a TM is probably muenster, just b/c I always loved it as a kid, but I'm betting that the horseradish havarti is EXCELLENT. If only you didn't have those pickles in the mix...

One other thing--I do enjoy nuts/granny smiths in tuna, but in smallish pieces, and I only like them if they stay crunchy; I'm wondering if they would get mushy in the press?

My $ .03.

[Rehovot]

My favorite tuna melts have the outsides of the bread slathered with butter and fresh grated Parmesan cheese (real stuff, not the tiny pebbles) before grilling. Zesty!

[Majra]

Another vote for rye bread, melted with swiss or gruyere. Just the thought has me salivating...

If you put apples in your tuna salad, I'd make the sandwich with sharp cheddar on wheat bread or raisin bread.

[rlibkind]

Admitedly, our tuna salad is nothing out of the ordinary except for the fact we're using good quality tuna (solid white in water.)

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I'm going to be a contrarian here, Glenn. White tuna in water may be what the vast majority of Americans want (and, because of that, probably what you should use), but it is far from the best tasting and best quality canned tuna. For that, I'd go with the imported "light" Italian-style in olive oil. My second choice would be the same imported light tuna in water.

[glenn]

Hey Evie, between you, me and the lampost, I had serious doubts about using branston pickles. I can hardly bear to look at the stuff any more as a result of a regular customer putting an extra portion of it on virtually every sandwich. But the pronounced taste really does blend in well.

I'm going to be a contrarian here, Glenn. White tuna in water may be what the vast majority of Americans want (and, because of that, probably what you should use), but it is far from the best tasting and best quality canned tuna. For that, I'd go with the imported "light" Italian-style in olive oil. My second choice would be the same imported light tuna in water.

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Interesting. Does it make the tuna salad more flavorful and less bland?

[Maison Rustique]

I adore tuna melts. My pet peeves:

**tuna salad that is watery or has too much mayo so that when you bit into it, it all squishes out of the sandwich

**anything sweet in the tuna like sweet relish or fruit

Other than that, I'm pretty easy to please. Oh! None of those fake cheese slices that come in the pastic wrap, please!

[woodburner]

Glenn, glad to see things are going fairly well.

Possibilites:

English muffin bread.

Bacon

Old Bay seasoning.

Havarti

woodburner

[rlibkind]

I'd go with the imported "light" Italian-style in olive oil. My second choice would be the same imported light tuna in water.

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Interesting. Does it make the tuna salad more flavorful and less bland?

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Yes! Try it, you'll like it. Also, I see there's an Italian belly tuna topic going. I've never had that, and I'm guessing it's the highest quality version of what I'm recommending, but probably too expensive to use.

[kitwilliams]

I'll second or third the suggestion for Italian tuna in olive oil. Man oh man. You'll never go back. Especially if you add a little sweet pickle to it!

[KatieLoeb]

Glenn:

The Horseradish Havarti sounds awesome. I sometimes will mix a little wasabi powder into my tuna salad to get that sushi tuna+wasabi flavor, so I like the idea of using a horseradish cheese for the melt. Horseradish Cheddar would be good too.

Another vote for the Italian tuna packed in oil. There's a place here in Philly called Chickie's Deli that makes the best Tuna Hoagie known to man that uses that kind of tuna in it. I'd never had it before that, but damn it's good. You might want to find yourself a can to test drive on your own and see if it's worth tracking down in large industrial sized cans, or even affordable to do so. You could try and find out where Chickie's gets theirs, maybe?

Now am I mistaken, or is a tuna melt usually an open-faced sandwich? I have nothing against the panini-pressed version, but I just always thought a Tuna Melt came open-faced with cheese bubbling on top.

[ludja]

...

So, I'm going by recipes I see in books and on the net.  And from suggestions here.  The recipe I'm using simply consists of onions, celery, mayo, lemon and branston pickles.  I need to keep it simple because of our limited resources (manpower, storage and equipment.) 

...

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As someone else mentioned above, minced carrot is also a really good add in. For a different flavor, another nice addition is capers. (enough but not too much).

[rlibkind]

Tuna salad is one of those foods that everyone likes a certain way. David Rosengarten, for example, likes what he termed the deli style, which is basically solid white in water into which a whole lot of very finely minced celery has been added, along with mayo. I've tried it, and he's right, it is very similar to the tuna you get in many delis, and it certainly is tasty. (I've also made this -- once -- with grated celeriac; the flavor was right, but the result was way too watery.)

As I noted earlier, my preference is for Italian style (usually it's canned in Morocco) light in olive oil, drained. To that I add homemade garlic gherkins and/or commercial sweet gherkins, celery if I have it, sweet red pepper, maybe parsley, capers, scallions (including the green) or chives, all as finely minced as possible. And lots of mayo; I like mayo. A great topping (not mixed in with the tuna) are the supermarket jars of pimento-stuffed green olives, or just the olive salad made from same, drained and roughly chopped; years ago a sandwich shop in Princeton (long since gone, as I recall it's name started with a 'V') served a tuna sandwich made this way and I've always remembered and tried to replicate it.

The ultimate tuna sandwich, though, is the French version in which you combine tuna, olives niçoise, drained diced chopped tomatoes, capers, parsley, and whatever you have handy which vaguely resembles what might be found in Province with olive oil and seasonings, stuff it into a hollowed out baguette, wrap it tightly and let it sit for a few hours, or even overnight. Alas, no melted cheese is involved so . . . never mind!

[racheld]

Ironin' Board Samwich. Those were the days.

When my children were very young, I set aside a morning a week to do all the ironing. Just before doing the breakfast dishes, I would make four sandwiches, on white or wheat, using two cans of squeeze-drained water pack tuna, the finest minced sweet onion, and a tablespoon or so of mayonnaise. The spread was topped with a cheese slice (do not ask what kind) and the finished sandwich was placed on a lightly-Pammed square of foil, to be wrapped tightly and stuck in the fridge til time for lunch.

Everybody played, watched cartoons, or ran around dancing like mad to the oldies station while I ironed away.

Then at lunchtime, all clothes were removed from the room, the board was spread with a clean dishcloth, which was then topped with a double paper towel. One child took the sandwiches out of the fridge, one poured the milk, and one fetched the fruit or baby carrots or applesauce, whatever was the accompaniment that day. The sandwiches were lined up on the board, and we all counted to ten as the iron was placed down heavily on each sandwich in turn. There were two rounds of this, then the packets were flipped over, ditto on that side, and we sat down to lunch.

In later years, when the boys were grown to big voracious teenagers, I would sometimes make a dozen or so of these, on hamburger buns, each one snugged into its little foil covering and put into the oven for fifteen minutes or so. We'd all grab an apple or a bowl of fruit salad, and sit down again, and I was the only one longing for those longago days of tiny hands helping make those quick, ironing-day lunches.

[kitwilliams]

Now am I mistaken, or is a tuna melt usually an open-faced sandwich?  I have nothing against the panini-pressed version, but I just always thought a Tuna Melt came open-faced with cheese bubbling on top.

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And I always thought it was simply a grilled cheese sandwich with tuna added!

I do remember a crab melt I used to get for lunch at a little joint in San Francisco. It was always served open-faced with cheese bubbling atop a toasted english muffin. Both halves of the english muffin were piled high with crab salad (just mayo, perhaps some celery) and covered in cheese. I think it was $4.95. I think it was also 1984.

And rlibkind, you are sooo right. 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.

A local deli makes terrific tuna salad and they have that sweet tang that the pickle relish gives however no pickle relish...listed on their ingredients is cider vinegar. Very yummy.

[kitwilliams]

Thanks for sharing that awesome memory, racheld!

[mizducky]

Admitedly, our tuna salad is nothing out of the ordinary except for the fact we're using good quality tuna (solid white in water.)

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I'm going to be a contrarian here, Glenn. White tuna in water may be what the vast majority of Americans want (and, because of that, probably what you should use), but it is far from the best tasting and best quality canned tuna. For that, I'd go with the imported "light" Italian-style in olive oil. My second choice would be the same imported light tuna in water.

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Another here who does not understand the supposed majority-preference for white tuna. Personally, I can't help thinking it goes hand-in-hand with the supposed majority-preference for white meat poultry. I like both my tuna and my chicken meat dark--more flavor. If you find the fancy Italian tuna cost-prohibitive for your restaurant business, you might want to experiment with better-quality domestic light-meat tuna (but avoid at all costs the cheap supermarket chunk-light tuna--the texture is not chunky but pulverized to smithereens). Olive-oil pack is definitely tastier, although water-pack has a nutritional edge in that the water doesn't leach away the fish's precious oil-soluble omega-3 fatty acids the way oil does.

I adore tuna melts. My pet peeves:

**tuna salad that is watery or has too much mayo so that when you bit into it, it all squishes out of the sandwich

**anything sweet in the tuna like sweet relish or fruit

Other than that, I'm pretty easy to please. Oh! None of those fake cheese slices that come in the pastic wrap, please! 

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Agreed on all counts. I like my tuna salad consistency good and stiff, so that a scoopful of it sits up on a plate without sagging at all. My long-standing aversion to sweet things in savory dishes makes me no fan of tuna salads with raisins or apples or sweet relish--now some chopped-up intensely sour kosher dills, that would work for me. I also don't like large excessively crunchy chunks of additives in my tuna salad, so if walnuts or celery are present I prefer them chopped real fine. When I'm just throwing a tuna salad together real fast for myself, I'll usually go real minimalist, with just the *extremely well-drained* tuna, some chopped onion (the stronger the better), and just enough mayo to bind it together. Sometimes I'll add a touch of Dijon mustard or prepared horseradish. I'll use just about any cheese (within reason) for tuna-melt, but a well-flavored swiss really does it for me. And to hold all that sandwich together without sogging, I prefer a really sturdy bread, like a dark rye or pumpernickel, toasted.

[Gifted Gourmet]

Now am I mistaken, or is a tuna melt usually an open-faced sandwich?  I have nothing against the panini-pressed version, but I just always thought a Tuna Melt came open-faced with cheese bubbling on top.

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I have never seen a closed tuna melt for exactly the reason you gave here ... the visual impression of the cheese melting is half of my pleasure!

the technical answer from Wikipedia ...