Table & Travel

Canned tuna was a sta­ple in our house when I was grow­ing up and tuna sand­wiches have always been a favorite of mine. We always had cans of Stark­ist, packed in oil, that mom would mix with may­on­naise and spread on white bread for sand­wiches. As the mer­cury prob­lem raised its head, these sand­wiches became more occa­sional and I switched to the tuna packed in water and later the bags that seem to have a fresher tast­ing produce.

 The best, or at least most mem­o­rable tuna sand­wich I ever had, was in 2004 in the Ital­ian vil­lage of Rosia. Vicki and I had been out explor­ing and stopped at a restaurant/bar in this lit­tle town to have a snack. We decided to order a tuna sand­wich, “sand­wich de tonno,” which was pre­pared for us by a very chatty lady behind the bar who enjoyed using her halt­ing Eng­lish on the Amer­i­cans. The results were fan­tas­tic, large pieces of tuna on focac­cia, drip­ping with olive oil and pun­gent with the fla­vor of capers. We still talk about that won­der­ful sandwich.

Recently the Food & Wine sec­tion of the Sun­day San Fran­cisco Chron­i­cle had sub­stan­tial arti­cle on tuna salad, which pre­sented var­i­ous styles and recipes. I decided to try the Fen­nel  & White Bean Tuna salad, which was made of of fen­nel, onion, and oil-packed tuna, mixed with may­on­naise, white beans, and a splash of red wine vine­gar. It was really excel­lent, crunchy and creamy at the same time, with a nice blend of fla­vors and a lit­tle kick from the red wine vine­gar and the capers I added. I went well with the slices of Whole Food’s sour dough.

I bought most of the fix­ings for the tuna salad at Whole Foods. I was look­ing for a can of Dave’s Gourmet alba­core, which had led the pack in a tuna-packed-in-oil tast­ing in the Chronicle’s F&W sec­tion last Novem­ber. Unfor­tu­nately, they didn’t have any so I set­tled on a Sicil­ian import, Flott Solid Light Tuna in pure olive oil. I found it a lit­tle heavy and would like to try the same recipe again with Dave’s.

Fen­nel & White Bean Tuna Salad

Serves 2 to 4, or enough for 4 sandwiches

Crunch comes from fen­nel and red onions in this Italian-inspired tuna salad. Serve it on toasted coun­try bread or over a pile of lightly-dressed arugula.

2 (5-ounce) cans oil-packed white tuna
1/3 cup small-diced fen­nel
1/3 cup small-diced red onion
1 table­spoon capers, drained
3 table­spoons minced pars­ley
1/2 cup canneds­mall can­nellini beans, rinsed and drained
1/3 cup may­on­naise
1 table­spoon red wine vine­gar, + more to taste
– Kosher salt and ground black pep­per, to taste

Drain the tuna, and flake lightly with a fork in a bowl. Add the fen­nel, onion, pars­ley, capers, and beans and gen­tly mix. Fold in the may­on­naise and red wine vine­gar until well com­bined, then sea­son to taste with salt and pep­per. Add more vine­gar if desired. Refrig­er­ate until ready to serve.

We had a lovely Thanks­giv­ing din­ner with Vicki’s fam­ily at her mother’s house. Vicki really out­did her­self this year, mak­ing three fab­u­lous desserts and a won­der­ful salad. She made the salad based on one we had at Soizic Bistro in Oak­land, where we recently had an out­stand­ing din­ner. It includes frisee let­tuce lay­ered with roasted acorn squash, pro­sciutto, and pome­gran­ate seeds. It is sprin­kled with feta cheese and served with kale pesto and a vinai­grette. Won­der­ful fla­vors and texture!

One of the three desserts she made was a pecan pie that uses rum and honey. It was deli­cious, crunchy and sweet, out­stand­ing with whipped cream. The recipe sug­gests using Lyle’s Golden Syrup, which is a good alter­na­tive for the evil corn syrup. It’s made in Eng­land from cane sugar and has a nice golden color; avail­able from Amazon.com.

Pecan Pie

Adapted from John Thorne’s “Best-Ever Pecan Pie” recipe, found in the book, Clas­sic Home Desserts

Home-made pie dough for 1 crust, or frozen pie dough
1 cup packed light brown sugar
1/2 cup Lyle’s Golden Syrup
2 table­spoons com­plex honey (laven­der, herbed, etc.)
1 table­spoon maple syrup
1 table­spoon dark rum
3/4 stick unsalted but­ter, soft­ened
3 eggs (at room temp.)
1/2 tea­spoon vanilla
1/4 tea­spoon salt
2 cups bro­ken pecans

Pre­heat oven to 350 degrees F. Fol­low direc­tions for home-made dough (i.e.: roll out, fit to but­tered 9-inch pan, trim edges and chill), or remove your froze crust from the fridge.

In large saucepan, com­bine sugar, Golden Syrup, honey, maple syrup, rum, and but­ter over medium heat. Let mix­ture come to a boil for a minute, scrap­ing down sides. Remove from heat and let cool for 20 minutes.

In a bowl, beat eggs till creamy. Incor­po­rate slowly into the cooled syrup. Stir in the vanilla, pecans and salt.

Pour fill­ing into pie shell and bake in mid­dle or lower rack, and bake for 45 minutes.

Remove from oven and cool on a wire rack.

Serves eight.