Tonight’s main dish: Salade Nicoise, which by my definition includes tuna. (I pretty much follow the Julia Child Salade Nicoise model.)
The dilemma: What tuna?
Life is so much simpler (in the short run) if we just eat what grocers put in front of us, but I know that a lot of fish isn’t good to eat for health or environmental reasons—or both. So I was happy to discover Environmental Defense’s Oceans Alive website and its page on the best and worst seafood selections. Besides the handy best-and-worst lists, the left sidebar of the page has a Seafood Selector box, wherein you can select the type of fish you’re interested in and learn more about it.
Tuna, I knew, usually has some mercury, a very bad thing, but tuna is plentiful and wild, and if you choose yellowfin tuna (aka “light”), you get a third less mercury than you would with albacore. So, yellowfin in olive oil it is, and anchovies, it turns out, are an “eco best” selection.
I can’t claim that the resulting salad is a local concoction. No tuna swims in Kansas, and the greens and green beans I wanted aren’t available on farms around here when the thermometer hits Scorching, so I cheated on those, too. But the most beautiful parts are the local ones: the fabulous tomatoes, the thin-skinned little potatoes (including some purple ones), the gorgeous and tasty eggs. It was a great combination.
Somehow the photo looks fake, but it’s the real deal. Obviously, I have a lot to learn in the food styling department…
Joanne // Sep 4, 2007 at 1:06 pm
This looks so good. I just purchased more canned tuna yesterday in hopes that we could eat fish more at home. (we’re giving a lot of support to the local sushi joints lately!) My other quick cooking fish suggestion are Salmon burgers. I bought them in our local grocery’s store’s newly expanded organic refrigerated section. They are wild caught Pacific salmon, processed in Eugene. Very nice dinner!
Janet Majure // Sep 4, 2007 at 6:44 pm
Hey, Joanne! Glad it’s useful. I’m assuming salmon burgers are pretty much like what I know as salmon croquettes. As I grew up eating (and later making) them, salmon croquettes (also known as salmon patties and salmon cakes) were made from canned salmon, and, amazingly, all canned salmon is from wild-caught salmon. Maybe I’ll post a recipe one of these days!