Appetizer - Stuffed Cucumber

Sarah was looking over my shoulder while I was looking over the appetizers sections of the cook book.  She quickly zeroed in on one recipe and requested the following recipe.

She doesn't even like tuna.  Why'd she pick this one?

It seems easy enough, but I was concerned about the mayonnaise.  I have never cared for mayo.  Presumably home made mayonnaise is consumable, but there have been a few encounters with mayonnaise that have left me with my aversion for this condiment.  Firstly, it is kind of slimy.  Now there are plenty of sauces and condiments that are similar in this, but mayo seems particularly slimy.  Secondly, it is often hidden in sandwiches without my permission.  Not cool, sandwich makers.  The third reason I don't care for mayo is a bit more complicated, and it also involves canned tuna.

Once upon a time, I worked in four different Subway shops in three different states.  As a teenager, if you've got experience in one store of a franchise, there's almost no reason why you wouldn't get hired at another store.  That's exactly what I did.  As far as food service goes, it wasn't too bad.  There weren't any fryers, no griddles, nor other things that would require extensive scrubbing of splattered grease.  But there was the tuna salad.  Making the tuna salad required taking handfuls of tuna out of a #10 can (thanks Ladies for that useful tidbit of information), and squeezing out the water over a big colander.  Then you had to open a gallon-sized jar of mayo and squish it all out into a big bowl.  The best way to mix the mayo and the tuna was by hand, so jump right in and start squishing.  It all smelled rather gross, and lifting tuna and mayo coated hands out of the bowl wasn't much better.

Not my image.  http://www.flickr.com/photos/like_the_grand_canyon/2528269003/

Thanks Subway, for making me think tuna salad is far more gross than it has to be.

Preparation

Anyway, I am not a fan of mayo, nor canned tuna.  So we decided to do both for the first dish of Cook Book Time Machine.  Hooray!  As you can see above, the method for this recipe is pretty simple:  seed a cucumber, mix some things into canned tuna, put it into the canoecumber.

There were a couple problems though.  Onion juice.  Is this something I am going to have to buy from the store?  I didn't want to cheat on the very first recipe I did.  To the internets!  It turns out that making onion juice is pretty easy without a juicer.

Grate onion

Strain onion pulp

Grating and straining half an onion easily yielded more onion juice than I needed.  Piece of cake!

The second problem was with the format and wording of the recipe.  Clearly, I needed 1 tablespoon of mayo (the can of tuna I had was 1/2 cup worth, so I scaled this recipe down).  Did that also mean that I needed 1 tablespoon of onion juice, lemon juice, Worcestershire sauce.  Or did it mean that I needed 1 tablespoon of mayo, and then onion juice, lemon juice, and Worcestershire sauce to taste like the salt and paprika?  I chose the former interpretation.  If you're the cook in the kitchen, you have to be like the president.  You have to be the decider.

*shudder*  Here we go.

Salt and paprika to taste was about that much.

Flashback moment, here.  Did you know that all Subway restaurants smell the same?  This might have something to do with it.

It was nice of our silverware manufacturer to include baby/cucumber seeding spoons in our set.  Insert tuna salad there.

Finished product.  Appetizing, no?

Tasting and Reaction

So there we have it, stuffed cucumber.  I wound up sprinkling some paprika on top of the mounded tuna salad too, to give the whole thing a little more color.  Decider.  To tell the truth, it doesn't look too bad.  To tell more truth, it wouldn't be my first choice at a pot-luck.  Sarah came over and skeptically took one of the slices that I offered to her.

Sarah:  Do I have to eat the whole thing?  I don't even like cucumber.
She tentatively took a bite.

She looks far more happy in this picture than she really was.

I'm not sure what this expression says.  Maybe it's amusement at the knowledge that I am willingly eating tuna salad.

Me:  They're not terrible.
Sarah:  No.  It mostly tastes like tuna fish.  It's like eating a can of crunchy tuna fish.

Sarah then expressed concern about wasting food.  I assured her that I would finish it all, though not in one sitting.  Shortly thereafter, I was banished from the living room so Sarah could watch one of her TV shows.  Later on, she joined me in the bedroom and saw that I had a bottle of beer next to me.

Sarah:  What's that?
Me:  I grabbed a beer to cut the lingering tuna flavor in my mouth.  That stuffed cucumber is the appetizer that keeps giving.  I was still tasting tuna five minutes after I had my last piece.

Thank you Goose Island for your Urban Pale Ale.  You are a good stuffed cucumber chaser.

One more note.  I had probably 8 or 10 of the slices at lunch today.  After being chilled in the refrigerator over night, they were alright after a sunny and hot morning at a park with James.  They were still very tuna-y, but they were ok.  James tried some too.  He said he didn't like the tuna, but the green part was ok... but not ok enough to finish.

Final Thoughts

This was alright.  I wouldn't likely make it again, but I wouldn't say that it descends to the depths of a kitchen horror at all.  It was simple, and even somewhat presentable.  Perhaps if people in our family liked tuna salad, it could be something that would make another appearance in our house.  It was a bit bland too.  It could probably have used more Worcestershire sauce, less onion juice (what did that contribute?), and maybe a little bit of heat.

Next time:  Bread

See you next week.