Sandra had to run errands this morning, and left at 9:15 without having eaten breakfast. I had just come upstairs from inking, and decided to cook “elevensies” for her return. Oddly, I’d been craving tuna casserole.
Digging around in the cupboards, I located plenty of tuna, but scored a couple of similarly sized cans of salmon. The recipe goes like this.
sautee a chopped onion in 2tbsp of olive oil. Add 2 cans of salmon (out of the cans, yes, but not drained, no). Add 2 cans of cream of mushroom soup, and 2 soup-cans of milk.
Boil.
In a 9×14 casserole dish, lay down some uncooked rotini. I used “1 package,” but based on the package notes, we’re talking about enough pasta that you’d use 3 quarts of water if you were boiling it on the stove.
Dump the boiling tuna/soup/milk/onion mixture over the noodles. Grate some cheddar on top, and then add a layer of crumbs. I used crushed Club crackers left over from New Year’s.
Bake at 325 F for 30 minutes — for at least 10 minutes the mixture should be bubbling around the edges.
Serve. If you’ve gotten the mixture of moisture-to-pasta right, you’ll be able to cut it and serve it in squares like lasagna. If not, you’ll have soup.
I was pleasantly surprised. The salmon has a much nicer flavor than tuna (when last I made this I was 10 years younger, and I used tuna), and Sandra loved it. The pleasant surprise was that when we served leftovers at dinner this evening, she STILL liked it, and the oldest two kids plowed through theirs enthusiastically. The younger two didn’t touch it, but I’m still counting this one as a win.
–Howard
… Y’know, I loathe tuna cassarole with a passion. One of my roomies loves it, but I can’t even think of the stuff without feeling squicked. But I love salmon-anything.
I wonder if she’ll like it too and maybe we can go for this as a compromise. It sounds appealing. ^_^ Thank you for posting this!
My pet theory is that casserole and hotdish, despite claims, are not the same things. “Tuna Casserole” (or Catfood Casserole..) is a nasty idea, which “Hamburger Hotdish” is edible, and can survive the adding of some (not many) peas. That Minnesota has given the ‘Tuna Hotdish’ state recognition proves only that a legislature can be full of idiots, not that there is such an abomination as a tuna hotdish. Now salmon, which isn’t catfood, could be in a hotdish.
My first thought
My first thought when I read “Canned Salmon Hotdish” was “Oh, ya, you betcha!”
… If you don’t get it, move to Minnesota for a couple years.
Warm canned fish….
Warm/hot canned fish is anathema. Your younger kids had the right idea…treat it as biohazardous waste. 🙂 A nice tuna steak…of course I’ll have that nice and hot. A freshly smoked salmon, lemme at it. Canned and then re-heated? Please not while I’m on the same planet.
Now if you substituted a nice bit of ground pork or maybe some chicken….now THAT I would go for. Your other recipes are tops and please don’t stop posting ’em just because some of us are prejudiced against hot canned fish.
Bryan “I understand spam is enjoyed in some parts of the world too” Paschke