Rachael Ray

Well, it won’t surprise you to learn that, more than one full week into the new year, I have not made good on my New Year’s resolution. You know, the one where I said I was going to cook better for my wife, and make things besides meat sauce? I have actually managed to do worse! I didn’t even make meat sauce! I reheated meat sauce, not once but twice; ordered Chinese food despite her express protestations, and my sure knowledge that she absolutely loathes the stuff; and finished up by making myself meat sauce that she couldn’t eat when she was fasting. So all that was bad.

But on the other hand, I have started making my Italian tuna salad again. Which is her favorite thing, and which I don’t like at all. So give me credit for that.

My Italian tuna salad isn’t really Italian; I think of it as Italian because I use approximately three gallons of EVOO in it, as well as some other vaguely Italian ingredients. I can actually boast that I thought it up myself, more or less, entirely to please my wife, who hates mayonnaise the way I hate silence. So I came up with an alternative binding element: mashed white beans, augmented by the dense, inexplicable opaque goop that the beans come in. I start with Italian tuna packed in olive oil, but I usually pour off most of it; it doesn’t absorb a lot of flavor, and it’s, as you might expect, the worst, cheapest oil they could possibly find. I replace it with copious amounts of the good stuff, which, through constant agitation, gets emulsified with the bean juice. The tuna is strongly seasoned; I am constantly adding kosher salt and grinding black double-husk tellicherry pepper into it, along with dried greek oregano. You cut up a big onion. Then come the acids: a half jar of capers and their vinegar, a couple of well-squeezed lemons, and then whole a touch of sweetness from some white balsamic. I mash it all up by hand, just enough to smush the beans and break up the tuna, and mix all the flavors well. It’s good then, and Danit will frequently express an uncharacteristic excitement when I hand her a bowl of the stuff. But the truth is that it’s even better the next day, after the tastes have all had a chance to meld.

This recipe is simple enough, and doesn’t require any cooking, but it’s still pretty labor-intensive. That’s one of the reasons I feel good about it. I also like that I don’t enjoy it very much. When I make something I like, what’s the reward? But a dish like this, which pleases my wife and requires more than a little effort from myself, is an ideal way to try to start fulfilling my fairly humble New Year’s Resolution. Anyway, here’s the recipe - even if you are just making it for yourself, free of self-imposed moralism, it’s still a great tuna salad.

Danit’s Italian Tuna Salad

3 cans tuna in oil, preferably Italian
1 bottle small capers
2 lemons
¼ cup extra virgin olive oil
1 tbsp best-quality oregano
1 tbsp white balsamic
1 10 oz can Great Northern or cannelini beans, with fluid
1 large yellow onion
salt and pepper (a lot)

Let sit a minimum of one hour. Dress with more olive oil if desired.