Mediterranean Tuna Salad In 6 Steps

Over a year ago now I had this tuna salad called "Mediterranean Tuna Salad" at a local deli and I've always both remembered it and thought that I could do better.   Such food arrogance is in my blood.

So today, I gave it my best shot!

STEP I: Assemble the Ingredients

I actually ended up pulling out more things than I needed or used, but since I was making this up with the help of my taste buds from so long ago, better safe than sorry.

STEP II: Chopping and Tossing Stuff

Sometimes a little thing can actually trigger in my mind a memory that leads to an adventure like this one.  In this case it was a jar of Salad Green Olives.  The olives in the jar where stuffed with pimientos, but also had a lot of chopped olives, ergo a lot of loose pimientos.  The olives were eaten and a quarter jar of pickled pimientos remained and so joined the other chopped and/or tossed ingredients and as I pondered what to do with them, inspired this foray into recreating something from my past.

The other ingredients were: Scallions, Celery, Red Sweet Pepper, Capers, Kalmata Olives, Red Pimientos (remnants from jar of olives), and Artichoke Hearts.

STEP III: Make Dressing

To accomplish this, I first decided to just use an Italian dressing mix and settled Good Seasons as being as good as any, right?  The base was basically 1/2 a cup each of straight up Mayonnaise and Mayonnaise with a "twist of lime," along with a couple of tablespoons of extra light olive oil.

STEP IV: Add Protein

I used "Solid Light Select" Tuna by Starkist, because it's real tuna, not shredded bits in water or oil, and because I personally do not like albacore.  I'm not a fan of it's bland taste, and I have enough mercury, cadmium and arsenic in my life--thank you, very much!  Along with the tuna, I used two of the three hard boiled eggs chopped up--one held in reserve for garnish and a snack!

STEP V: Combine All Ingredients

I garnished with egg medallions and some extra scallion.  My mother would have sprinkle it with paprika, I did later add some freshly ground black pepper.

STEP VI: Serve it on Toasted Olive Bread with Freshly-Sliced Tomato from the Farmer's Market sprinkled with a little Oregano.

You could also easily add a pasta like elbow, rotini, or shell to the mix and forego it as a sandwich spread with equally wonderful results.  And, yes, it was better than that deli's version from years past.