Six Things to Make With One Good Tin of Tuna

By Jodie Smith, Product & Hamper Manager at The Gourmet Pantry.

One 70g tin of albacore is a single serve, so the tuna bake is out and six smaller things are in: tuna on toast, spaghetti for one, a loaded pita, a made-ahead sandwich, a tomato salad, and six canapes.

None needs mayonnaise, and none takes longer than toasting the bread. The tin does most of the work, so what matters is what sits beside it.

What is actually in the tin

We stock exactly one tinned fish: Walker's Tuna Australian Albacore, a 70g tin at $5.95. It is the whole of our tinned tuna shelf, and saying so plainly sets the shape of everything below.

The ingredient panel runs to three lines. Fish 87 per cent, line caught albacore, Thunnus alalunga. Extra virgin olive oil 12 per cent. Salt. No water, no vegetable oil, no flavouring. Read as a ratio, a 70g tin holds a little over 60 grams of fish and under two teaspoons of oil: enough to keep the fish moist, nowhere near enough to dress a plate.

Albacore is the pale one. It leaves the tin in solid pieces rather than shreds, closer to poached fish than to the flaked tuna most of us grew up on, and it tastes mild and faintly sweet. Walker's Tuna is the retail side of Walkers Seafoods Australia, a Queensland company that runs its boats along the east coast and unloads at Mooloolaba. The recipe was developed with Neil Perry, and the restraint shows: fish, oil, salt, nothing to hide behind.

Why 70 grams changes what you make

Seventy grams is one serve. Two people means two tins, and a family bake means five or six, which is not what a hand-packed loin is for. Treat it as you would fresh fish rather than a staple you tip into a dish, and two shapes are left: the tin at the centre of a plate for one, or spread across a board so six people get a mouthful each.

Six things to make with one tin

1. Tuna on toast, done properly. Toast a thick slice of sourdough, rub the hot surface with a cut garlic clove, then tip the tin over it, oil and all. Salt, pepper, a squeeze of lemon and a slick of early harvest olive oil, because the tin never held enough. Five minutes, and still the best thing one tin does.

2. Spaghetti for one, no sauce required. Cook 100g of tricolore spaghetti and keep a mug of the cooking water. Soften a sliced garlic clove in olive oil, take the pan off the heat, then toss the drained pasta with the garlic oil, the tin and its oil, and enough pasta water to make it glossy. Fold the tuna in last, in large pieces: held over heat, solid loin turns to shreds.

3. A loaded pita for a board. Break the tuna into a bowl, fold through a teaspoon of black olive tapenade and a few chopped kalamata olives, then spoon it onto olive oil and sea salt pita. One tin covers about eight pieces, so it is a plate for the table, not catering for a party.

4. Pan bagnat, made the night before. The southern French sandwich that improves under pressure. Split a crusty roll, oil both cut faces, then layer tuna, sliced tomato, olives, a little raw onion and a chopped teaspoon of preserved lemon. Wrap it tightly and leave it overnight in the fridge under a plate and a weight. The bread takes up the oil, the sandwich cuts cleanly, and it is the only thing here that improves with waiting.

5. A tomato salad the tuna finishes. Slice ripe tomatoes, salt them and leave them ten minutes so they give up their juice. Dress with that juice, more olive oil and chopped preserved lemon rind, then lay the tuna on top in large pieces. Do not stir it through. Stirred, it becomes tuna salad, a different and lesser dish.

6. Six canapes off one tin. Confiletas mini savoury pastry cases come twelve to a pack at $9.95 and need nothing but filling. One tin fills six of them generously: tuna, a sliver of olive, a drop of oil, a crack of pepper. That is the version for a Christmas Eve table where nobody wants to cook.

What to keep beside the tin

The same few things keep turning up across all six. Buy them once and the tin always has somewhere to go.

Three things not to do with it

Do not bake it. Heat turns solid albacore into the shredded texture people associate with cheap tuna, and very little heat does it. Add the fish off the heat at the end.

Do not drown it. Mayonnaise, mustard and heavy dressing cover the reason you bought this tin instead of a cheaper one. Oil, salt, acid, then stop.

Do not buy one tin for four people. Buy four, or make it the accent on a board rather than the meal. Once open, the label is clear: refrigerate, use within two days.

Tinned tuna questions we get asked

Is albacore better than skipjack tuna?

Different, and better suited to this kind of cooking. Skipjack is darker, stronger and cheaper, and it is the tuna built for a filling bound with mayonnaise. Albacore is paler, milder and stays in large pieces, which is what you want when the fish is the thing on the plate. Walker's also points out that albacore carries more omega-3 than yellowfin or skipjack.

How much tuna is actually in a 70g tin?

The panel reads fish 87 per cent, so a little over 60 grams, with extra virgin olive oil and salt making up the rest. That is one adult serve on toast or through pasta, or six generous canapes. The label also states it is made from 99 per cent Australian ingredients and packed in Thailand.

Does tinned tuna need to be drained?

Not this one. The liquid is extra virgin olive oil rather than brine or unnamed vegetable oil, so it belongs in the dish and pouring it away wastes the better half of what you paid for. Tip the tin in whole. A tin packed in brine is the opposite case: drain that one, every time.

Start with one tin

If you have never eaten albacore in olive oil, buy one tin of Walker's Australian albacore and make the toast first, because that is the version that shows what you are working with. It sits beside the oil, olives and preserved lemon in the rest of our pantry range, and the whole shelf lives on the tuna page. Free shipping Australia-wide on orders over $100. Orders placed before 12pm on a weekday are dispatched the same day from our Corio, VIC warehouse, tracked with Australia Post.