What We Eat When We Eat Alone - Deborah Madison [26]
When it came to fish in a can, salmon was mentioned only once, when Marsha Weiner talked about making her grandmother’s salmon cakes. Due to a special, I had quite a few large cans of salmon in my cupboard that I hadn’t gotten around to using until Marsha sent us her grandmother’s recipe. Although the idea of eating canned salmon did not, understandably, go over well with a bunch of chef friends from Seattle with whom I enthusiastically shared the recipe, I can tell you that a salmon cake is a great eat-alone item. Once again, if you want to eat wild rather than farmed salmon but can’t always find it or pay its hefty price, canned Alaskan salmon is very affordable, is wild, and doesn’t go bad. But be warned, it’s not always very pretty stuff, especially the cheap kind. It’s not particularly pink (though the more expensive brands are), it doesn’t necessarily come in distinct, big chunks like tuna does, and you will no doubt find some tiny little vertebrae when you turn the fish into a bowl. But don’t let any of this stop you. Just pick out the bones and know that by the time you’ve assembled your cakes and got them crusty and golden in a skillet, none of this will matter in the least. They’re delicious.
Tuna, not surprisingly, is also a common answer to the solo dinner question—canned tuna, that is. More serious cooks and eaters go for fresh, which takes very little time to cook but is fairly costly. People we met in Europe frequently mentioned tuna in olive oil as the backbone ingredient of their meals, as do friends in the U.S. One cook was especially enthusiastic about his bean and tuna dish. After making it clear that he never does the same thing twice, he avowed that he liked what he had recently cooked so much that he would do it again. What he did was heat a tin of borlotti beans in a pan with olive oil and garlic, squeeze in a bit of tomato paste for color, and add a small dollop of the spicy Tunisian chile paste, harissa, for flavor. Then he flaked a small tin of Spanish tuna over the beans and added a scraping of Parmesan cheese.
“Rich, filling, and interesting” was his assessment. Of course this brings to mind those Italian salads made with canned tuna in oil and borlotti or cannellini beans mixed with thinly sliced onions, capers, and vinegar. Such salads also make a good solo meal, albeit not a warm one but a good option for summer.
Tuna and chile appear in one fellow’s (yes, Dan the monk’s) tuna sandwich, in which the canned fish is mixed with lots of chopped jalapeños and cilantro as well as capers, plenty of mayo, and, though this is optional for some reason, celery. All of this gets heaped onto a large slice of toasted levain bread. More simply, you can purée tuna (and water-packed will be fine), with mustard, mayonnaise, capers, and not too much garlic, and eat it on crackers for a meal, or before one. I learned to make tuna spread when I cooked for a much older woman who thought that a tuna spread made a terrific cocktail canapé, and it does, especially when you need a tasty little spread at the last minute. Spread it on toast or a cracker, add extra capers or a sliced pimento-stuffed olive, and it can pony up to a martini or a salad of sliced tomatoes, green beans, and a hard-cooked egg.
Regardless of what fish is in the tin, it’s best when it comes packed in olive oil. It’s much tastier than water and, for that matter, canola or soy oil. Mustard sauce isn’t necessary, although some sardines come that way. You can always add mustard later to your toast or cracker. But the olive oil is good. As it also picks up the flavor of the fish—or shellfish— it can even be used to dress