21‘All you
have to do is
open the can
and slice
open a bag of
saltines.’Japanese-Style Tuna Noodle Salad
Time: 30 minutesFor the salad:
¼ cup cut dried wakame seaweed
8 ounces dried udon noodles
1-2 tablespoons furikake or sesame seeds
10-12 ounces canned tuna in oil, drained
2 scallions, trimmed and thinly slicedFor the dressing:
2 tablespoons sesame oil
2 tablespoons canola oil
2 tablespoons rice wine vinegar
1 tablespoon mirin
1 tablespoon soy sauce
1 teaspoon sweet miso- Bring a large pot of water to a boil over
high, and set the wakame in a small bowl.
Once the water comes to a boil, ladle
or pour enough over the wakame to cover it
by 2 inches; let the wakame soak for 10
minutes. Transfer the wakame to a colander
to drain and cool; set aside. - While the wakame soaks, cook the noodles
according to the package instructions. - Meanwhile, prepare the dressing: In a
measuring cup or bowl, whisk to combine
the sesame oil, canola oil, rice wine vinegar,
mirin, soy sauce and miso; set aside. - In a small skillet, lightly toast the sesame
seeds, if using, over medium-low heat until
fragrant; set aside. - Drain the cooked noodles in the colander,
then transfer to a wide, shallow serving
bowl. Add the wakame and about ¾ of the
dressing, and toss to coat. Divide the
noodles among 4 bowls. Top each portion
with tuna, drizzle with the remaining
dressing, then sprinkle with the scallions
and furikake or sesame seeds. Serve hot,
cold or anywhere in between.
Yield: 4 servings.Adapted from the ‘‘Th e Tinned Fish Cookbook,’’
by Bart van Olphen.Canned fi sh is one of the great delights
of this shoulder season, as spring begins
its ascent — and maybe particularly
when so many of us are cooking with
the cans in the back of the pantry, or try-
ing to keep stocks of food in the house.
I like the larger ones mixed into may-
onnaise and the smaller ones dabbed
with hot sauce. I like albacore crumbled
into roux and heated with elbow mac-
aroni and cheese — tuna wiggle, some
people call it, or tuna casserole. I like
sardines shingled over pilot crackers
or accompanying a sleeve of stoned
wheat thins, with an apple and a wedge
of cheese. I like canned salmon fl aked
onto a salad, with a tangy vinaigrette. I
like to eat these things outside, in the
brisk bright air of early spring as much
as in the warmth of summer, at a table
on a porch or on a blanket in the sand,
and especially now, as I emerge blink-
ing from the Northeastern winter blues,
ready for a new season.
I’m not alone. Even some of those
who have access to the fi nest ingre-
dients, chefs for whom the distance
between ocean and table is smaller
than average, men and women known
for their devotion to the fresh and the
new — even they love a can of fi sh. Espe-
cially if it’s what I’ll call a best-available
can of fi sh: sustainably caught, packed
in good oil.
‘‘It’s not bunker food,’’ the chef Erin
French told me. ‘‘It’s sexy picnic food.’’
French owns and operates the Lost
Kitchen, in Freedom, Maine, where the
menu arises from what the farmers near-
by have grown and what the boats have
brought to shore in Portland, down the
coast. You don’t run into a lot of tuna
wiggle there. ‘‘But a good, tender tinned
fi sh, soaked in clean and fruity olive oil,’’
French asked rhetorically, ‘‘on a bit of
crusty bread slathered with butter?’’
That she endorsed, calling it ‘‘the purest
of joy.’’ I tried that preparation, just to
see, with best-available sardines and a
baguette swiped with Irish butter. It is
in fact joyful.
So is the version I learned from Carri
Thurman, one of the chefs and owners
of Two Sisters Bakery in Homer, Alas-
ka. (On the menu: sunfl ower oat bread,
vegan pitas and multigrain focaccia with
roasted veggies.) Thurman doesn’t keep
tuna in her larder, or sardines, not after
35 years in a city devoted to the harvestof halibut and salmon. But like a lot of
her neighbors in Homer, she puts up a
lot of salmon. ‘‘All you have to do is open
the can and slice open a bag of saltines,’’
Thurman said. Add cream cheese, sweet
pickles, chives if you can fi nd them. ‘‘It’s
the perfect on-the-go potluck plate,’’ she
said. That’s true, I’ve discovered, even
with canned salmon bought at a grocery
store in the lower 48.
Steven Satterfi eld, the vegetable sha-
man, co-owner and executive chef at
Miller Union in Atlanta, taught me yet
another approach: crumbled canned
tuna served over a salad of baby kale and
chicory mixed with a shallot vinaigrette,
along with shaved radishes, sliced fennel
and a handful of olives. Satterfi eld called
it a late-winter salade niçoise, and who
am I to disagree? It’s awesome.
But it was Bart van Olphen, a You-
Tube fi sh fanatic, entrepreneur and chef
whose ‘‘The Tinned Fish Cookbook’’ will
be published this spring, who gave me
my favorite recipe of the new season:
an udon noodle salad with canned tuna
in oil, dressed in a sweet-salty vinai-
grette of soy, sesame oil, mirin and rice
vinegar. Van Olphen calls this dressing
wafu, which translates roughly as Jap-
anese-style. I think of the dish as Jap-
anese tuna wiggle. It is as good served
cold as hot.
I did make some adjustments to van
Olphen’s instructions. To the dressing,
for instance, I added a little sweet miso,
as much for the texture it added as for
its taste. And I increased the amount
of wakame, a remarkably fl avored sea-
weed, just because it’s so delicious and I
wanted to make a point: It’s not really a
garnish but an ingredient, like the peas
in a tuna casserole, not the chopped
parsley on top.
Which is not to say this salad isn’t
garnished. But instead of using a spray
of van Olphen’s plain toasted sesame
seeds, I substituted a like-size amount of
furikake, the Japanese seasoning blend
that has a base of sesame seeds and then
some mixture of dried bonito, hot pep-
pers, chopped seaweed, sugar, salt and,
sometimes, monosodium glutamate. My
children call furikake ‘‘shake’’ and use it to
anoint their afternoon rice snacks, where it
adds a hit of pungent umami to their meal.
I shower my Japanese tuna wiggle with it
for similar reasons. The result tastes to me
of promise, of what’s to come.