A Different Take On A Tuna Noodle Dish

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A Japanese-style noodle salad with canned (or jarred) tuna at its center.
A Japanese-style noodle salad with canned (or jarred) tuna at its center.

You can teach a person to fish.

Or you can hand them a can-opener to wield upon tins of tuna.

These days, the latter may be much more practical, given how canned (or jarred) tuna ranks right up there now with toilet paper, disinfectant wipes, and fabric masks, as commodities we apparently most value when we think the world is coming to an end.

If you’ve already had one too many tuna sandwiches or casseroles, then you’ll surely welcome this novel tuna dish into your arsenal.

“Japanese-Style Tuna Noodle Salad” is from Sam Sifton of The New York Times. He adapted this from a recipe from “The Tinned Fish Cookbook: Easy-to-Make Meals from Ocean to Plate―Sustainably Canned, 100% Delicious” (The Experiment) by Chef Bart van Olphen.

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“Cooking For Good Times” — Sort Of

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Quinoa with cauliflower, olives, oranges, and herbs -- a dish for good times and more challenging ones.
Quinoa with cauliflower, olives, oranges, and herbs — a dish for good times and more challenging ones.

Ah, yes, it seems like a lifetime ago — though it was merely a few bewilderingly months back — that I was contemplating a trip to Chicago later this year.

How I looked forward to taking one of those architecture-themed boat ride tours on the lake that I’d heard so many good things about. How my husband was salivating at the thought of deep-dish pizza and loaded Chicago-style hot dogs. How I had looked forward to trying one of the restaurants by chefs Stephanie Izard and Paul Kahan. How I had already circled on my calendar the exact week I should start trying to snag a coveted reservation for my bucket-list meal at Alinea.

So much for that.

I have friends who swear they’re curtailing any traveling whatsoever until a vaccine is available to defeat this deadly virus. Me? I can’t say that getting on an airplane holds any appeal for the foreseeable future. If I do venture out of my area when restrictions are finally lifted, I think the car is the way to go, because I wouldn’t want to be too far from home with so many ifs, ands or buts still looming on this precarious horizon.

So for now, I’ll just experience Chicago vicariously, through Kahan’s newest cookbook, “Cooking for Good Times: Super Delicious, Super Simple” (Lorena Jones, 2019) by Kahan.

There’s a sweet irony to the title, isn’t there? Because many would say that we as far from good times as it gets.

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It Looks Like Hell, But…

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Don't let the blackened appearance keep you from trying this incredible charred cabbage dish.
Don’t let the blackened appearance keep you from trying this incredible charred cabbage dish.

…Yes, it tastes like pure heaven.

Consider this the ultimate ugly-delicious dish.

“Charred Cabbage with Miso and Lime” is by Portland, OR chef Jenn Louis. It’s from her cookbook, “The Book of Greens: A Cook’s Compendium of 40 Varieties, from Arugula to Watercress, with More Than 175 Recipes” (Ten Speed Press, 2017).

I love deeply charred cabbage because hitting it with fierce heat brings out its inherent sweetness as it caramelizes.

As such, I’m always looking for new ways to flavor it. This one especially appealed at this time because all it takes is red miso, butter, and lime — all of which I had handy already, which is no small miracle these days.

This recipe was originally intended for one green cabbage, cut into 8 wedges, and cooked in two pans. I actually used an arrowhead cabbage, an heirloom variety, that’s indeed shaped like a pointy arrowhead or cone. Grown by Pescadero’s Fifth Crow Farm, it tastes like green cabbage, but is just a tad sweeter.

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Louisa’s Cake

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A sunny ricotta cake that is so moist, buttery, and rich.
A sunny ricotta cake that is so moist, buttery, and rich.

We all grew up seeing our parents and grand-parents, who lived through the Great Depression, wars, and/or famines, take care — to the extreme — to not let any drop of sauce from a can, any heel of bread or any minute shred of fish off the bone ever go to waste.

Not on their watch.

And now, not on ours, either.

With the pandemic creating food shortages — both real and exaggerated ones — we find ourselves looking at food much differently now, treating everything with the reverence it deserved all along.

The very bottom stems of parsley that I once tossed? No more. Now, they get finely diced and tossed into salads and soups. Those radish tops I once never looked twice at? Now, I savor them sauteed in an egg scramble.

The leftover ricotta I had from making lamb meatballs? Not that I would deign to ever throw something like that out, but these days, it takes on an outsize importance. Yes, that leftover ricotta that I once just nonchalantly enjoyed with berries for breakfast the next day, now seemed too good for that. Clearly, it should be destined for something far more special, I thought.

I found exactly that in “Louisa’s Cake.”

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Keep Calm & Eat Cheese

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Loads of spicy, smoky flavor -- that's why Cypress Grove's Chipotle Cocoa delivers big-time.
Loads of spicy, smoky flavor — that’s why Cypress Grove’s Chipotle Cacao delivers big-time.

When it comes to cooking, it’s the little things in life that make such a difference now — crunchy sea salt, olive oil with a real personality, and an exceptional cheese with flavor to spare that elevates anything it touches.

That’s why I felt like I had truly hit the culinary jackpot when Humboldt County’s Cypress Grove sent me samples during this just-the-basics-ma’am, hunker-down-and-make-do kind of time.

Because it’s soft-ripened goat cheeses are anything but banal. Since 1983, this Arcata, CA-based cheesemaker has been turning out award-winning wheels. Since 2017, it’s taken a fancy turn each year to its classic Humboldt Fog by making limited-edition remixes that feature herbs and spices added.

This year, Cypress Grove ups the equation by not only adding the familiar ripple of flavoring at the center of the cheese, but also mixing it into the cheese paste through and through. The result is wallop of flavor.

This year’s line-up includes the Dill Remix, which was released in April; the Chipotle Cacao that will debut in summer; and the Haze Remix due in the fall.

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