The Tuna Salad Conversation Continues?
We hope it does, even if we're just talking to ourselves.
TUNA SALAD IS IN! It’s lit. It’s on fleek. It’s fire. It’s low-key a national obsession. It’s the favorite dish of Timothée Chalamet. It’s the new chili crisp/chili crunch/David Chang.
I’m not sure if I’m using any of these expressions correctly—I had to consult an online slang dictionary for unhip people—and my claims are obviously lies. But tuna salad deserves some duplicitous rebranding. Otherwise, it’s never going to be the dish that cool people eat at the clubs or brag about consuming—at least, not in the same way they’ve crowed about bee pollen or Cerignola olives or yuzu juice or ’nduja or Calabrian chili peppers or nutritional yeast in the decades since people started (and then stopped) calling themselves “foodies.”
On the other hand, I just read that “snacks” and also “vegetables” will be among the trending foods this year. So why not something as commonplace as “tuna salad”?
I really want to know why.
But tuna salad is not usually subject to the blustery winds of food fashion, and even if it were we would never waver in our affection for it here at the Department of Salad. For us, it exists in a dimension of its own—beyond time, space, or other flimsy constructs.
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Unfortunately, just like salad in general, tuna salad usually gets reduced to the most basic version the human mind is capable of conjuring. So if you mention the words “tuna salad,” most people reflexively assume you are talking about the standard: mayonnaise-laced and fortified with celery, hard-cooked egg, and maybe pickle relish. Not that there’s anything wrong with that. It’s simply tuna salad’s public persona.
But a few years ago, we wanted to “drill down” the concept of tuna salad to get to the truth about what people were really eating out there. So we had the first Tuna Salad Conversation, in the post below (which included an extremely interesting, very casual poll we took on Twitter, about people’s favorite way to make it; we left Twitter ages ago, so that link is dead, but it was fire):
This naturally led to a tuna-salad-focussed open thread with reader recipes, which we kicked off in the post below:
All of which culminated in some extremely tasty, crowd-sourced tuna salads—The Curry Version, The Hippie Version, and the Mediterranean Version—and led us to the profound discovery that in this age of menacing, internet-induced cultural and culinary homogenization, the tuna salads we all make in private, at home, are a reflection of who we really are. You can read a bit about this in the post below:
We really liked this conversation—it helped us get to know you!— and we’ve been thinking about continuing it for a long time. So please keep an eye peeled for an e-mail tomorrow asking you to join a new open thread about your most personal tuna salad recipes and methods.
In the meantime, we have two delightful recipes, both of which exemplify the beauty of breaking free of the mayonnaise trap in tuna salad (even though we love mayo) and one of which continues a minor exploration of the tuna salads of other regions, which we’ll be doing a bit more of in the future.
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*RECIPE: Messy Salade Niçoise
Serves 2 or 3, as a light lunch
I like nothing more than Salade Niçoise— so pretty. But when you’re really hungry, it can feel a little stand-offish, with its composed demeanor. I’ve always wanted to muss this salad’s hair and loosen its tie. Doing so fixed one tiny problem I’ve always had with the dish, which is that it always seems to need more dressing, and more tuna, and you spend so much time cutting up beans and potatoes. Why not cut it all into bite-size pieces, toss it with dressing, and pack it for a car trip or work lunch? No reason at all, really. (You can make this salad with more beans or more potatoes—but this is the ratio I liked.)
2 medium-size waxy potatoes (I used Yukon gold), boiled whole until tender, cooled, then peeled and cubed (about 1½ cups)
2 5-ounce cans good oil-packed tuna, thoroughly drained in a fine mesh colander, broken apart but not flaked
⅓ cup pitted Niçoise or Kalamata olives, very roughly chopped
2 tablespoons capers (more if you love capers)
4 to 6 ounces thin green beans (or haricots verts), blanched (until just bright green), cut into 1 inch pieces (you want a heaping cup)
¼ cup finely chopped red onion
1 cup small cherry or grape tomatoes, sliced in half
4 tablespoons olive oil
2 tablespoons red wine vinegar
2 teaspoons lemon juice
Zest of ½ lemon
Salt and pepper
2 hard-cooked eggs, peeled and split in half lengthwise, for serving
In a large bowl, combine the potatoes, tuna, olives, capers, green beans, red onion, and tomatoes and toss very gently to combine.
In a jar with a tight-fitting lid, combine the olive oil, vinegar, lemon juice and zest, and shake well; season with salt and pepper.
Drizzle about ⅔ of the dressing over the salad and toss gently. Taste for more dressing, salt and pepper; adjust. Let sit for at least 30 minutes before serving, garnished with sliced hard-cooked eggs.
*RECIPE: Maldivian Tuna Salad (Mas Huni)
Serves 2 as a light lunch or several as appetizers
I first tried this dish, which is traditionally eaten in the Maldives for breakfast, because I thought it sounded interesting. But I was bowled over. It’s easy to make, and you end up with a dish that transforms canned tuna into a refreshing treat full of lime and spark. I pulled this version from several I liked, but most recipes I’ve come across just use equal amounts of coconut to tuna, with some sort of chili pepper and red onion, plus lime. I think oil-packed tuna is really good here—especially since there is otherwise no oil. If you can’t find fresh coconut (I can’t ever), reconstituting dried unsweetened coconut is easy; here’s the method I used. This salad is usually served with Maldivian roshi, which is a flatbread like roti. It’s also good on simple flatbread crackers as an appetizer.
1 5-ounce can good oil-packed tuna (about a cup), thoroughly drained in a fine mesh colander and flaked
1 cup unsweetened shredded coconut, fresh or dried (dried must be reconstituted)
Juice of 2 limes (use three if they are small), plus grated zest of one lime
1 red chili pepper (I used a large Fresno), stem removed, cut into several pieces
¼ small red onion (about ¼ cup), cut into chunks
Salt to taste
In a medium bowl, combine the flaked tuna and coconut and mix together well with a fork. Stir in the lime juice and zest.
In a mini food processor, combine the chili and onion and process until very finely chopped. (You can also do this by hand.) Add this to the tuna mixture and mix well. Season with salt to taste. Let sit for at least 20 minutes before serving—or refrigerate until ready to use.
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🥬 🥬🥬 🥬That’s It! We’re done here! We’ll see you soon with a recipe for authentic Greek Moussaka. I’m kidding—it’s going to be salad.
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As a lacto-ovo vegetarian who last ate fish in 1988, I wasn’t giving my full attention to salads I would never eat (or make), but as usual the writing was enticing and the photos were colorful and fun, so I read on…and I’m SO GLAD I did, because a certain sea creature native to the Maldives has been on my mind in recent weeks!
Back in my high school days, the AP English teacher was a brilliant oddball whose assignments were spoken of with reverence. Coming into his class, you knew you’d be writing some fiction of your own, and reading some John Donne, and HEART OF DARKNESS. You would also have to analyze and memorize the following strange poem by Herman Melville, probably best known for his whale. We did read Melville’s BARTLEBY THE SCRIVENER, a novella which I quote to this day (“I prefer not to.”), but the poem really got its teeth into me. Perhaps the Maldivians do a version of their tuna salad with other large game fish, like this one. I don’t think I’ve ever read or heard anything about the Maldives other than this poem until today’s salad recipe…and anyone planning to make the salad might want to hold off on the poem until you’ve eaten and digested The Maldive Tuna.
THE MALDIVE SHARK
About the Shark, phlegmatical one,
Pale sot of the Maldive sea,
The sleek little pilot-fish, azure and slim,
How alert in attendance be.
From his saw-pit of mouth, from his charnel of maw
They have nothing of harm to dread,
But liquidly glide on his ghastly flank
Or before his Gorgonian head;
Or lurk in the port of serrated teeth
In white triple tiers of glittering gates,
And there find a haven when peril’s abroad,
An asylum in jaws of the Fates!
They are friends; and friendly they guide him to prey,
Yet never partake of the treat—
Eyes and brains to the dotard lethargic and dull,
Pale ravener of horrible meat.
—Herman Melville
I would absolutely eat the Maldivian Tuna Salad for breakfast!