As this little
tuna salad experimentation adventure of mine comes to an end, I must say that I have learned a lot. While I never did quite
duplicate the tuna salad I set out to duplicate, I came awfully darn close with your help and with the additional (and unexpected) help of a former professional chef acquaintance of ours. The fact is that I believe I've come up with some even better flavors than the one I originally set out to duplicate. Either that or my tastes in tuna salad have begun to change back in some ways to a more traditional (
stronger tasting, slightly less sweet) product.
Here is a brief summary of what I learned:
Tuna - The very best tuna (best overall flavor, color and prepared texture) for tuna salad turned out to be a
mix of solid white albacore in water
and chunk light tuna in water. This "mix" idea was suggested to me by the former pro chef. It didn't matter whether it was canned or pouched, but the canned stuff had to be
pressed and drained far better than I had been doing... and then "washed" and re-pressed/re-drained. He told me this same technique should
always be applied to packed-in-oil tuna as well.
Mayonnaise - As much as I love and live for my Miracle Whip, the fact is that I wasted a lot of time seeking the flavor I wanted by incorrectly assuming that the target recipe
had to have used Miracle Whip (or similar). Turns out I was dead wrong. I came closest to the target recipe with plain old Hellman's Mayonnaise. It doesn't mean I am giving up on Miracle Whip in tuna salad...
hardly!!!... but the target recipe clearly did
not use it.
Fresh Minced Celery - A critical ingredient for that fresh crunch, look and texture... but not all that critical to flavor if one plans to use sweet relish for a more tart flavor anyway.
Lemon Juice - One of the
key critical ingredients that I had long overlooked. This made a huge difference once it was pointed out to me.
Sweet Relish -
Cains in my case - Absolutely critical to achieving the tart, sweet flavor I was seeking.
Minced Red Onion - An excellent addition, but not in the target recipe.
Hard Boiled Egg - Not in the target recipe and did nothing for me.
Sweet Mustard - Definitely one of the key missing ingredients.
Congratulations and thanks to the folks who identified mustard as one of the
key ingredients in the target recipe. The only difficulty I had was finding the
correct mustard. With the pro chef's help, and absent the skill to make my own blend, I ended up with
Raye's Sweet & Spicy Mustard (the best match I could find locally). Interestingly, Cain's Hot Dog Relish is sweet and already contains mustard. It was a pretty darn good substitute for using separate sweet relish and sweet mustard.
Ketchup/Cocktail Sauce/Chili Sauce? - We are still firmly convinced that ketchup (or something
very similar) was a small, subtle part of the target recipe... but the more we experimented with it, the less we thought it absolutely necessary. It can easily overpower.
Refrig Breathing Time - Absolutely critical... and so confirmed by our pro chef acquaintance. Even an hour or two makes a big difference.
Store-Bought Tuna Salad - I will never buy it again as long as I live. I came upon some of the
worst tasting tuna salad ever trying different store deli offerings.
Eaten By Itself vs. Sandwiches - I found that how I eat my tuna salad greatly affects how I prefer it to taste and how I will now make it. I also found that my habit of always eating my tuna sandwiches
with a big slice of tomato is not always the best idea. If the tuna salad already has plenty of flavor,
lettuce alone can make for a better tasting (and far less messy!) sandwich.
Those are my conclusions. One last time - Thanks to
all who helped me!
Take care,
Tom