Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Tuna and Egg Salad

If you're like me, the mere mention of these two foods triggers bad thoughts, like disappointing brown bag lunches and mediocre shalish shudas pickin's. When someone asks you "what do you want to eat?", tuna fish and egg salad will inevitably be listed as options, and you will inevitably say "pass".

Why? Probably because most of the times you've eaten them it's been out of some giant tub in a school or camp cafeteria. Not a lot of thought was put into it, and it came out dull and unexciting.

The truth is, though, tuna and egg salad get a bad rap. They should be eaten more often, for the following two reasons:
1. They are cheap
2. They are good meat alternatives for those who don't want to eat that much meat (after all meat is expensive and not that good for you).

I found that, when you take a few simple steps to make these two dishes a little more sophisticated and exciting, you find yourself eating them - and looking forward to them - more and more often.

Let's start with tuna. Plain tuna with mayo is filling, but bland. I start by adding mustard; this alone will take your tuna into a whole new dimension. Throw in some pickle relish (or chopped sour pickles if you don't like sweet), or pickled peppers and you've got a sandwich that's rich, satisfying, sweet, tangy and spicy all at once. Really, anything you find in the pickle isle of the supermarket is a good candidate for tuna (jarred peppers, olives, capers, etc.)

With egg salad, I usually go with savory/spicy. Besides salt and pepper, garlic is a must. In fact I often just stop there - salt, pepper and garlic (and, of course, some mayo). The garlicy version puts regular egg salad to shame. But don't stop there, throw in chili powder, or cayenne for heat. Throw in hot sauce, or bbq sauce. Try using garam masala. Try sun dried tomatoes and basil. The possibilities are endless.

2 comments:

  1. other egg salad variations:

    1- finely chop an onion and saute it until it is very very caramelized. mix in 1 tbs of dijon mustard into your standard mayo/egg salad

    2- lots of herbs!

    3- add turmeric and cumin (be gentle with the cumin)

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  2. i do the same thing with my tuna! gosh we are geniuses

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