Saturday, July 19, 2008

Tuna Pasta Salad with cooked egg "mayo"

It's summer and we've been longing for those easy & cool summer meals. Pre-allergy elimination diet, we were a big fan of tuna pasta salad - tuna from a can; hard boiled eggs; frozen green peas; elbow (wheat) noodles; mayo; salt & paprika. Delish. Since we were egg-free for so long, I didn't even attempt it. Now that we're doing cooked eggs (no raw yet - thus no true mayonnaise yet), I thought I'd give it go. Allergy-friendly style, of course.

INGREDIENTS:
  • 12oz (dry) brown rice noodles
  • 4 hard-boiled eggs
  • two green onion stalks
  • 6oz can of safe tuna (check labels - most tuna packed in "water" is actuall packed in a vegetable broth containing soy)
  • safflower oil
  • paprika
  • salt
DIRECTIONS:
  1. Prepare noodles according to package directions, rinse in cold water & set aside
  2. Cut boiled eggs in half and separate hard yolks from whites. Chop egg whites however you like.
  3. In a separate bowl, mush up egg yolks. Add some salt, paprika & safflower oil and make a mushy paste. Gradually stir in more oil until you have a dressing/sauce of sorts.
  4. Finely slice green onions.
  5. Mix everything (including drained & rinsed tuna) together in a (really) big bowl. Add more salt or oil as necessary.
We served ours with raw carrot sticks on the side. Easy, cool and yummy. And for the first time in a long time, I felt like we were eating a "normal" meal.

Serves 4-6 (The four of us ate it all, eating probably more than we needed to feel full because it was so good and so different than what we've been eating.)

ALTERNATIVES:
  • use fresh chopped up chicken or fish or seafood instead of canned tuna
  • use actual (homemade or otherwise) mayo if you can tolerate raw eggs
  • chop up raw veggies and mix in - onions, garlic, broccoli, kale, cabbage, etc
  • serve as "real" salad over a bed of greens
  • Omit chopped egg whites and use an italian-style dressing (olive oil, basalmic or apple cider vinegar plus spices) instead of yolk sauce.

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