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Jim Dixon wrote about food for WW for more than 20 years, but these days most of his time is spent at his olive oil-focused specialty food business Wellspent Market. Jim’s always loved to eat, and he encourages his customers to cook by sending them recipes every week through his newsletter. We’re happy to have him back creating some special dishes just for WW readers.
America loved canned tuna for 50 years. From 1950 to 2000 it was the most popular seafood in the country, but the growing sentiment that fresh is better—along with concerns about overfishing, slave labor and mercury—led to a nearly 50% drop in consumption over the subsequent decades. It didn’t help that most of the cheap canned tuna, usually packed in water, didn’t taste very good.
But we’re slowly learning what Mediterranean seafood-eating cultures have always known: good ingredients and careful processing yields delicious tinned fish. Contemporary canners like Fishwife and Minnow took clues from their Portuguese, Spanish and Italian counterparts, offering higher quality tinned fish comparable to European conservas. And when tinned fish first trended on TikTok a few years ago, sales started climbing back up again.
Here on the left coast we’ve always had access to the best tinned fish in America: line-caught Pacific albacore. The young fish migrate up the coast from June to October, gorging on fatty sardines and anchovies so they have much higher levels of omega-3 fatty acids than the larger albacore caught farther out. Oregon State University researchers found that these young fish also accumulate much less mercury than older specimens.
While most canned tuna is cooked, packed and cooked again as the cans are sealed, the local catch gets packed raw in its own juices before it gets cooked just once during the canning process. The albacore comes out of the tin as a firm chunk with lots of flavor, and there’s no need to drain the flavorful juices. While you may find cans of Oregon albacore at some stores in town, your best bet is ordering it directly from the fishers on the coast (the Oregon Albacore Commission has links to local producers on its website).
The caned albacore works in recipes just like the fresh stuff poached in olive oil, but most of the time I use it to make tuna salad. Not the mayo-heavy version usually stuffed into tuna sandwiches, but a brighter, lighter salad that goes just as well on a simple bed of lettuce as it does between slices of good bread. While I usually leave them out, the optional hard boiled egg and spoonful of mayo give the salad a bit of the more traditional texture of old-school tuna salad.
Recipe
1 6-7 oz can Pacific albacore packed in its own juices
1-2 small inner celery stalks with leaves, finely chopped (about 2 tablespoons)
1 tablespoon capers, preferably salt packed
2-3 gherkins, finely chopped
1 small shallot, finely chopped
2-3 sprigs fresh mint or parsley, finely chopped
Zest from 1 lemon
1 teaspoon lemon juice or wine vinegar
2 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
¼ teaspoon kosher-style sea salt
Freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 hard-boiled egg, finely chopped (optional)
1 tablespoon mayo (optional)
Empty the tuna and its juices into a bowl and use a fork to break it up. Add the remaining ingredients and mix well.