Tag: tuna

When I couldn’t sleep last night and was a little hungry, I watched a video of Samin Nosrat making a confit tuna sandwich. Terrible idea, it took forever to get to sleep after that (I was starving!), but the sandwich looked really excellent. It’s kind of a Niçoise salad on great bread.

I made a version of that sandwich today for lunch that cuts a few corners. Even with the not-as-luxurious ingredients, it was fantastic.

Fancy-ish tuna sandwich

Based on Samin Nosrat’s confit tuna sandwich. Serves 2.

Thinly slice 1 red onion. Place the onion in a small bowl with a good pinch of sugar and a good pinch of salt. Cover about two-thirds of the way with white wine vinegar, then add a bit of cold water so that they’re just barely submerged. Stir and set aside.

In a small bowl, combine 1 small garlic clove, finely minced, and about 2 T mayonnaise. Set aside.

Drain 1 can of skipjack tuna chunks in olive oil with salt in to a medium bowl, reserving the olive oil in another bowl. Whisk a small amount of salt in to the olive oil and set aside.

Finely chop a small handful of pitted green olives and a small handful of brined capers. Place in the bowl with the tuna.

Slice about ¼ cucumber in roughly 3mm rounds (you want about 4-5 cucumber pieces per sandwich; feel free to peel it a bit before slicing) and place in the bowl with the tuna.

Add about 2 T mayonnaise to the tuna mixture and combine by hand. Add some of the onion vinegar or more mayo if needed.

Slice a crusty baguette in to appropriate sandwich-sized portions and then slice the portions in half length-wise so you’ve got a top and a bottom. Coat the bottom bread half with the garlicky mayo and lightly coat the top half with the seasoned olive oil. Top with the tuna mixture, then a decent amount of pickled onions.

EAT.

I have no doubt that the proper confit tuna version is better and totally worthwhile, but it’s not something that I can really make based on my local resources and the timing of my day-to-day life. This version is pretty heavily simplified, but it gets the most critical flavours and textures in there. The quality of the canned tuna is super important, of course. There were leftovers of a few of the ingredients, particularly the onion, so I’ll probably make more of these sandwiches again later this week.