Yam Tuna
october 6, 2014

My kids love tuna salad. My son makes me explain, over and over again, why he cannot eat it every day. He recently realized the connection between mercury in tuna and thermometers, which is really exciting to me, as his mother. But more importantly, I know he and his sister will always eat this toxic fish.

Maybe not if it's mixed with vegetables and fish sauce, but this was an easy dinner to break into two parts: plain old mayo & dijon tuna salad on toast with cheddar for the kids, Thai Tuna Salad for the grown ups.

Preparing it was quick, especially since my son made the tuna and sandwiches for himself and his sister. Yes, his was about twice the size of his sister's, but I can't fault him too much for that. 

The Yam Tuna was easy to make - a little chopping and dicing, some pouring, mix, mix. Or so it seemed. But then after tasting I realized something was very wrong. Either using Vietnamese fish sauce instead of Thai was a big mistake, or the sauce was more concentrated than usual because I'd used the very last dregs of the bottle: it was way too salty. I considered rinsing it in water or adding more vegetables, and as someone who enjoys a fair amount of salt, chose the latter. 

In the end it all worked out fine - twice the onion, tomatoes, cilantro, celery (plus the leaves) and a 1/4 cup of basil seemed to make it all good. My husband liked it, I though it was fine, my kids loved their sandwiches.

This was the third dinner using hot pepers my kids harvested at the barn dance we attended last weekend, and I got to use more lemongrass from our garden. As I've mentioned before, it is the only plant that has really thrived this year, between the draught and my attempt at hand-watering after the irrigation broke. All in all, I'd call this a success.

On p. 54 of Andy Ricker's Pok Pok.