Nettle and Quince

It was Leo’s idea. ‘Maman, please can you tell me how to make this, I feel it could be a good thing for me to make at ‘Uni.”

Just like that — with a couple of continents, a few siblings, and about 18 years in between — our first child has left the house, and of all of them (including the five-year-old), he is the one I least trust to know how to fry an egg. It’s a bit of a running joke in the house but it’s a bit true! Though I know he can fry an egg. Anyway, he will need to feed himself, hopefully, occasionally, from something other than granola.

So here is a first recipe for you, Leo, for this year. We miss you already.

Tuna salad
Here are some steps to make a tuna salad. It goes from the most basic, with things that should always be stocked in the kitchen, to a more elaborate dish with lots of green and red and onions and (potentially?) herbs.

1 — Basic essential ingredients

About 320g (2 small tins) of tuna packed in water — try to choose sustainably fished tuna (for example look out for the sign from the Marine Stewardship Council on the tins)
2 tablespoons mayonnaise
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 tablespoon vinegar
Salt

Drain the tins of tuna of as much water as possible by opening them 4/5th of the way, using the lid to retain the tuna while the liquid drains out on the side (without letting any/too much tuna slide out with it).

Scrape the tuna into a bowl.

Add the mayonnaise, olive oil, vinegar, and a pinch of salt to the tuna. Mix well with a fork.

That makes the most basic tuna salad. You can stop here and eat it like that.

2 — You can also add any (or all) of the following:

Green things: celery, cucumber, spring onions, fennel, parsley (who am I kidding?)
Red things: tomatoes, red peppers

Wash the vegetables in cold water. Cut off the ends (of the cucumber, celery, spring onions, fennel) or remove the core (tomatoes, red peppers).

Cut and slice the vegetables into very thin and small pieces. Chop the parsley.

Add the vegetables to the tuna. Mix again. Taste and add a bit more mayonnaise or vinegar depending on what is missing.

That’s it! To be eaten with bread or directly out of the bowl.

The tuna salad can be kept (covered) in the fridge for a day, maximum two.

This entry was posted on 27 September 2021 at 14:55 and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.