BWW Cooks: Know Your Tuna (and Love It Canned, Too)

Ah, tuna. Or is that ahi tuna? Once a canned staple in every kitchen, now tuna has gone posh. Ahi steak, please, barely seared, rare to raw inside, or perhaps a plate of tuna sashimi. Even a nori roll with sushi grade tuna is too pedestrian to be touched these days. We know too much better; we're jaded, expecting perfect tuna steaks, perfect ahi sashimi, nothing so déclassé as a can of Bumble Bee. Charlie the Tuna? Who cares?

And yet... and yet. Surely the siren call of real tuna salad on rye sings to you. Or if not that, perhaps a tuna noodle casserole, that comfort-food vestige of your childhood. It's all right. It really is. Come out from where you're hiding with that can of white albacore in your hand, and show your face. Canned tuna - it's safe to admit again that you're not just buying it for the cat.

Let's talk tuna, first of all. You may have heard something about endangered tuna and Japan. The tuna you absolutely shouldn't eat that's served fresh is usually found in sushi or in expensive restaurants, if it's served here at all, and that's bluefin. It is so popular that it has been overfished severely. It's not used in canned tuna, but served fresh. If you're eating tuna steak in a restaurant, check first to make sure that it's not bluefin being served. Many responsible chefs won't serve bluefin any more. Ahi tuna is yellowfin, a tuna species that's not as overfished, though there are issues developing with that. If you're at a sushi bar, what you may be served instead of bluefin now is bigeye. It pays to check, or perhaps to pass on the tuna rolls - bluefin is endangered, but bigeye has high mercury level issues. Order the smoked salmon roll instead, or try uni (sea urchin) for once.

As for the tunas that are canned and ready to be tuna salad, tuna noodle casserole, tuna burgers, macaroni and tuna, and other such delights: you know them as chunk light and white, and you know that chunk light has a slightly stronger flavor. Canned "light" tuna may be yellowfin, or it may be skipjack. Skipjack is considered a cousin of "real" tuna, but it certainly works. Apparently as much as 70 percent of canned and pouch tuna is skipjack, so when you think tuna noodle casserole, this is the flavor you're remembering. Skipjack aren't endangered and don't have much in the way of mercury content issues. Tuna labeled "white tuna" however is usually also labeled "albacore," which is a particular species of its own.

However, albacore is increasingly caught by longline fishing, and the mercury content is increasingly problematic. It has a milder flavor and is preferred by some people because of that, but the taste issue is a pure matter of personal preference: especially if you're making a casserole in which the flavor of the tuna is diluted by other ingredients, the heartier flavor of light tuna may be better than the milder flavor of albacore. The light is certainly healthier if you're trying to avoid mercury. Sustainable canned yellowjack, so labeled, is also available, for a price, usually at specialty and health food shops - you'll more likely find it at Whole Foods than at Kroger.

Tuna originally was packed in oil, though since the Sixties the share of water-packed tuna has grown and you may even have problems finding oil-packed tuna now. Water or oil? That's a matter of personal taste as well; some swear that oil-packed has more flavor and that water-packed is soggy and flavorless, while others find oil-packed greasy, as tuna is a fatty fish already. Most oil-packed tuna is packed in neutral-flavored oils such as soybean, but some is packed in olive oil, which has its own distinct flavor that is loved by some home cooks. If you've only used water-packed and want to try oil-packed, you only need drain it; you don't have to rinse off the oil. Just don't feed it to the family pet the same way you may feed them the drained water from water-pack tuna.

Canned tuna is considered heart-healthy and is loaded with omega-3 fatty acids. It's also carbohydrate-free and high in protein. Using light tuna and eating no more than two cans a week reduces mercury concerns. Don't feel bad about your canned tuna habit.

But what if you want to do something different without dealing with the cost or effort of fresh tuna? Tuna salad and tuna casserole can only go so far, after all. Here are a few other ideas for your canned tuna:

Tuna risotto: Use tuna packed in olive oil. Add spinach, broccoli rabe, or kale.

Tuna alfredo: Go for the milder flavor of white tuna here.

Tuna with white beans and vegetables: Use canned white beans. Think roasted red peppers, roasted halved Brussels sprouts, and roasted onions.

Tuna Waldorf salad: add protein with chunk tuna, well-drained, and use a bit more dressing on the salad to compensate for the addition.

Tuna pizza: Tuna and white beans, again, with thyme and with roasted red peppers as well.

Salad nicoise: It's great to use seared ahi in your salad nicoise, but olive-oil packed canned tuna is traditional. Hard-boiled eggs, cold boiled potatoes, cold cooked string beans, black olives - it's classic, and a marvelous meal on a hot day.

Potato salad with tuna: Your basic mayonnaise-dressed potato salad goes well with tuna in it, and perhaps a dash of vinegar to spark the flavors.

Tuna carbonara: You can add tuna to any good pasta carbonara recipe to up both protein and flavor.

Tuna pasta salad: use orecchiette pasta. Add halved grape tomatoes and capers along with whatever else suits - a little onion, a few black olives, perhaps some quickly-cooked string beans, and don't make it without white beans or garbanzos. The "little ears" will surround beans, capers, olives, and other ingredients, making the pasta salad cohere nicely with whatever dressing you choose.

Tuna melt variations: Make your classic tuna melt by piling ingredients into a tomato like a stuffed tomato, or halve a small zucchini and stuff it with your tuna melt mixture.

Don't hide your canned tuna any more. Bring it out proudly. It doesn't have to say "too backwoods for fresh tuna" - it's a food unto itself, with its own recipes, and it's okay to love it. But whether you're eating canned or fresh tuna, consider sustainability and mercury levels as well as dolphin safety, and eat accordingly.

Photo credits; Freeimages.com