Tuna toasties for a busy Friday night

Regard the humble tuna toastie.

It’s not big or clever or funny or famous.  You don’t serve it at fancy dinner parties.  Ferran Adria has not deconstructed it into a post-modernist version of itself.  In short, it doesn’t get to walk the culinary red carpet of life.

But show me a quicker, easier and tastier dish to quickly feed yourself when you are packing for a skiing holiday (yay!) on a Friday night after a long week at work, and I’ll eat my hat. 

Like with most things in life, though, there are tuna toasties and tuna toasties. Sure, you can make a really rather unappealing one with spongy mass-produced white bread, cheap mayo and processed cheese… or you can make these gourmet tuna toasties on mini ciabattas with tomato & spring onion & handmade Ford Farm mature cheddar.

If there were tuna toastie Oscars, they would walk it 🙂

COOKSISTER’S TUNA TOASTIES (for 2)

Ingredients:

2 mini ciabattas (or 4 slices of good bread)
1 tin tuna in spring water
2 generous Tbsp mayonnaise
2 spring onions (including green leaves), finely chopped
a handful of baby plum tomatoes, chopped
dash of Tabasco sauce
freshly ground black pepper
50g grated mature Cheddar cheese

Method:

Chop the spring onion and tomato.  In a medium bowl, flake the tuna with a fork.  Mix in the onion, tomato and mayonnaise.

Grate the cheese and add half to the tuna mix.  Check for seasoning and add the Tabasco and pepper

Slice the mini ciabattas in half.  Spread each with a thin layer of mayonnaise.  Pile the tuna mix on top and sprinkle the rest of the cheese over the tuna.

Bake at 200C for about 10 minutes to warm through, then turn the grill on until the cheese has melted.  Serve with a green salad.