Quarantinechef: super quick cannellini and tuna salad

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Since the ‘rona is never-ending in America, it’s time for QUARANTINECHEF 2: SUMMERTIME SADNESS. First up: a super easy cannellini bean and tuna salad that you can make in less than ten minutes.

cannellini_salad.jpg

This recipe comes from THE TUCCI TABLE (buy at bookshop.org), which is Stanley Tucci’s second cookbook. I have both, and both are excellent. THE TUCCI COOKBOOK is more traditionally Italian and features recipes from both sides of his family, while TABLE combines his Italian cooking with the British recipes of his wife, literary agent Emily Blunt.

Since we’re in the middle of the apocalypse, I’ll skip the usual recipe-blog story and get straight to the point:

INGREDIENTS:

  • one 15oz can cannellini beans (buy them now before they’re impossible to get again)

  • one 5oz can of tuna (preferably packed in olive oil - Whole Foods sells albacore in olive oil)

  • half a red onion

  • salt and pepper

  • extra virgin olive oil

  • flat-leaf Italian parsley

  • optional cherry tomatoes (I didn’t have any, so squeezed in some lemon juice for acid instead)

INSTRUCTIONS:

Step 1: Drain the tuna. Drain and rinse the cannellini beans. Throw the tuna and the beans into a medium mixing bowl.

Step 2: Chop half a red onion. Stanley Tucci recommends thin half-moons, but I diced mine instead since I don’t like big pieces of onion. Add the red onion to the tuna/beans.

Step 3: Season to taste with salt and pepper, then mix gently to avoid crushing the beans. I used ~1.5 tsp of sea salt and 10-12 cranks of freshly ground pepper, but ymmv.

Step 4: Add a ‘glug’ of olive oil (thanks for the very precise measurement, Stanley Tucci).

Step 5: Chop and add flat-leaf parsley to taste.

Step 6: Tucci calls for optional cherry tomatoes here. I added juice from half a lemon instead, which really brightened things up.

Step 7: Serve!

PRODUCTION NOTES

  • I used slightly less than half a red onion - my onion was huge and half an onion looked like too much. Because it was so large, it really wouldn’t have worked as half-moons. But a smaller onion might have been nice sliced instead of diced.

  • This is a great pantry-only meal - the beans, tuna, olive oil, salt, and pepper are always on hand, and I usually have lemons and onions lying around too. In a pinch I would happily skip the parsley. I would also be curious to see if white wine vinegar would work for the acid if I had literally nothing fresh.

  • This serves 2ppl as a meal, or 4ppl as a side to something else.