Tuna Casserole . . . From Scratch

Sara Schrader was my best friend when I was a kid. She lived just across the street from me, and we were pretty much inseparable for four straight years. That is, until she and her family moved out to the ‘burbs. I was devastated. I have since lost contact with Sara, though my dad still takes his car to her dad’s auto shop, so I get vague updates every once in a while.

Both my parents worked, but Sara’s mom was a SAHM for the five Schrader kids. When it looked like we were hitting it off as friends in first grade, my parents made the decision to ask Mrs. Schrader to take me on as an after-school charge. It was awesome for Sara and I, because we couldn’t get enough of each other.

Occasionally Sara would go out to eat with my family, or I’d stay at their house for dinner. Sara probably thought the food we ate was way weird, but I thought their food was equally weird, though for totally different reasons. They ate things like meatloaf and goulash. Through no fault of the Schraders, the one dish that always skeeved me out was tuna casserole. It was creamy, had mushrooms in it, warm tuna, peas . . . blech! The Schrader kids seemed to love it, but my staying over for dinner always came with the caveat that if they were having tuna casserole, I was out of there.

So, maybe I missed out on some of the wonderful American comfort dishes. Being with Erik has opened the door to a whole world of domestic gastronomy that I never thought could be so tasty. I have absolutely no memory of ever eating meatloaf prior to about six months ago (though it may have happened during my family’s nebulous pre-vegetarian era), and though I always assumed I would hate it, when I finally made it for him one night, I was sold. In fact, I’ve been thinking it’s about time to make that again . . .

But this is not about meatloaf. Erik has requested tuna casserole on numerous occasions, and I’ve never relented, having bitter memories of that warm tuna smell etched in my olfactory subconscious. But, ever since the meatloaf epiphany of 2009, I’ve been trying to be more open minded about all the foods I’ve assumed I’d hate. I took a deep breath, and Googled tuna casserole.

Though there are countless versions of tuna casserole, they all seem to have some common elements: tuna (obviously), noodles (usually egg), cream of mushroom soup, peas, and some sort of crunchy topping element, either breadcrumbs or potato chips. None of the basic recipes piqued my interest in any way. The traditional recipes seemed too boring, and the tweaked recipes seemed too far from the traditional (I’m very hard to please). After reading through a gagillion different recipes, I found what looked like a good one for tuna casserole from scratch (i.e., no cream of anything soup). I did some of my own tweaking, but the soul of the original dish is still there. It took me forever to make, and I swear I used every pot in the kitchen, but the result was extraordinary. Erik was pleased with it, but more importantly, I loved it. I never thought I’d like tuna casserole, but this recipe is well worth the trouble.

Tuna Casserole
(adapted from this recipe)
Ingredients
1 medium onion, finely chopped
4 ½ Tbsp unsalted butter
½ pound cremini mushrooms, cleaned, trimmed, and sliced ¼” thick
2 tsp soy sauce
¼ cup white wine (I used some pinot grigio I had sitting in the fridge)
¼ cup all-purpose flour
2 cups low-sodium chicken stock
1 cup 1% milk
2 tsp fresh lemon juice
¼ tsp salt
2 5-oz cans albacore tuna in water, drained
½ pound farfalle pasta, cooked
1 cup frozen peas
1 ½ cups panko breadcrumbs
1 cup grated cheddar cheese
1 Tbsp vegetable oil

Put oven rack in the middle position, and preheat the oven to 375. Butter a 2-quart casserole dish.

Melt 1 ½ Tbsp of butter in a pan over low heat and cook the onions until they are soft, about 5 minutes. Add the mushrooms and increase the heat to medium-high. Cook, stirring occasionally, until the mushrooms begin to give off liquid, about 4 minutes. Add the soy sauce and white wine and boil, stirring occasionally, until the liquid evaporates. Remove from heat.

Melt 3 Tbsp butter in a large saucepan over low heat, then whisk in the flour. Cook the roux, whisking continuously, for 3 minutes. Add the broth slowly, while whisking, and bring to a boil, still whisking. Add the milk, keep whisking, and bring to a simmer. Simmer for 5 minutes, whisking occasionally. Turn off the heat, and stir in the mushroom-onion mixture, lemon juice, and salt. Flake in the tuna, and then add the peas. Season with salt and pepper.

Pour the mixture over the cooked farfalle, and stir gently to combine. Spoon evenly into the casserole dish.

In a small bowl, combine the cheese and panko. Drizzle in the vegetable oil and mix to combine. Sprinkle the mixture evenly over the casserole. Bake until the top is golden brown and the sauce is bubbling, about 20-30 minutes.

Scallion Pancakes

My parents made a real effort to expose me to myriad different cultural influences when I was young. In retrospect I’m thankful for all the experiences, but at the time I thought the food they made me eat was weird and, frankly, I just wanted a Wonder Bread fluffernutter for lunch like all my friends had. As anyone who was in the same boat can attest to, it kind of sucks being “the kid with the weird food.” Times seem to have changed a bit, and whereas we were the only vegetarian family I knew, I know countless vegetarians these days and I have no doubt Eliza will be friends with kids who eat even weirder food than I ever did.

I managed to find one dish within each of the different cuisines we ate that I enjoyed, like chole at India House, soft tacos at Hot Rositas, and scallion pancakes at the dim sum restaurant. I hated onions, but I loved scallion pancakes. They remain one of my favorite foods in the whole, wide world, and if they are on the menu, I will order them. That said, I haven’t found a single scallion pancake in all of Austin since I moved here two-plus years ago. In fact, I have yet to find a decent dim sum joint (Get Sum on North Lamar is next on my list; they don’t have scallion pancakes, but they do have red bean buns, which are also one of my favorites).

After gorging myself on scallion pancakes for a full week during a recent trip to my hometown, I decided enough was enough. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Or rather, if you can’t buy ‘em, make ‘em! I picked this particular recipe because I am a follower of @userealbutter on Twitter, and she always seems to put together some dynamite-looking recipes. This one is super simple, which is great because the idea of making my own dim sum was a bit daunting. But once I finished the first pancake and ate it, piping hot off the frying pan, I knew I had made the right decision. Another bonus is Use Real Butter’s generous use of beautiful illustrative photos; they helped reassure me that I was following the recipe correctly.

My advice? Make these, and make them often.

Chinese Scallion Pancakes