Tuna, cheese and caper melt
The tuna toastie of Israeli cafés: tuna in olive oil mixed with mayonnaise, mustard, capers and pickle, topped with bubbling Emmental between two slices of bread toasted golden in butter.
Method
- Preheat the oven to 200°C fan and take the butter out to soften. Tip the tuna into the colander and leave to drain without pressing: it retains a little oil, which keeps it moist. Finely chop the onion, capers and pickle, and chop the parsley.
- In a bowl, flake and mash the tuna with a fork, mixing in the mayonnaise, mustard, lemon juice, onion, capers, pickle, parsley and pepper. The filling should be creamy, glossy and hold in a small mound; if it crumbles, add 1 tsp mayonnaise. Thinly slice the tomato and blot on kitchen paper.
- Thinly butter one side of each bread slice right to the edges. Put all 4 slices buttered side down on a tray lined with baking paper and bake for 3 minutes: the tops should be dry and barely golden, with the undersides starting to brown.
- Take the tray out without turning the slices. Spread the tuna mixture to the edges of the dry side of two slices, then cover with Emmental; leave the other two slices alongside on the tray. Bake for 7–8 minutes. After 4–5 minutes, as soon as the plain slices are well browned underneath, lift them out with a spatula and keep warm on a plate near the oven; any longer and they would become hard like rusks. Leave the topped slices in until the end: the cheese should be melted, bubbling and starting to brown at the edges, and the buttered undersides of the bread should be golden. If the oven has a grill, switch it on for the final minute with the door ajar, watching constantly: the Emmental will bubble and develop golden patches.
- Take the tray out, arrange the tomato over the hot cheese and close with the reserved slices, golden side out, pressing lightly. Wait 1 minute for the cheese to set a little, cut each sandwich diagonally in half and serve one per person.
Variants and their steps remain below the recipe.
Fish-free
- Tuna in olive oil (160 g tin, 112 g drained) → Eggs 220 g (4 hard-boiled eggs, for two fish-free sandwiches)
- add Fine salt 1 g (1 pinch, for the eggs only)
- While the oven heats in step 1, lower the eggs into a small saucepan of boiling water and cook at a gentle boil for 10 minutes. Cool under cold water for 3 minutes and peel. In step 2, roughly chop with a fork instead of using tuna, mashing the yolks while leaving pieces of white. Add a pinch of salt and mix with the same sauce: mayonnaise, mustard, lemon, onion, capers, pickle, parsley and pepper. Taste: the filling should be as well flavoured as the tuna version. Continue in the same way.
- For one plate of each, cook 2 eggs and use 1 tin of tuna (112 g). In step 2, first divide the mayonnaise, mustard, lemon, onion, capers, pickle, parsley and pepper between two bowls, then add the chopped eggs and pinch of salt to one and the tuna to the other. In step 3, put the two bread slices for the egg sandwich at one end of the tray on their own piece of baking paper. In step 4, top the egg slice first with its filling and then Emmental, followed by the tuna slice, using a separate spoon for each filling.
An egg melt: chopped hard-boiled eggs in exactly the same sauce, with the same buttered bread and melted cheese topping. Dairy, without meat, baked on the same tray.
Lighter version
Tuna in water makes a less fatty, more fibrous filling, even when loosened with its liquid. Less mayonnaise and butter reduce the creaminess and the bread's buttery aroma, while the cheese keeps its stretch.
- Tuna in olive oil (160 g tin, 112 g drained) : removed
- Mayonnaise : 25 g
- Unsalted butter, 82% fat (200 g block) : 10 g
- add Tuna in water (160 g tin, 112 g drained) 224 g (2 × 160 g tins, drained without pressing, reserving 2 tbsp of their liquid)
In step 2, mix the tuna in water with 25 g mayonnaise. If the filling crumbles, loosen with 1–2 tbsp liquid from the tin instead of the extra spoonful of mayonnaise in step 2, until creamy and able to hold in a small mound.
In step 3, butter the bread very thinly with 10 g butter.
Tuna in water, a little less mayonnaise and butter: liquid from the tin keeps the filling creamy, and the bread stays golden.
On your plate
Recipe
823 kcal · protein 53 g · carbs 52 g · fat 43 g
Quantities per person
- 90 g Sliced white sandwich bread
- 7.5 g Unsalted butter, 82% fat (200 g block)
- 112 g Tuna in olive oil (160 g tin, 112 g drained)
- 35 g Kosher Emmental
- 20 g Mayonnaise
- 5 g Hot Dijon-style mustard
- 7.5 g Capers
- 10 g Gherkins / small pickled cucumbers
- 2.5 g Flat-leaf parsley
- 20 g Lemon
- 12.5 g Red onions
- 60 g Tomatoes, vine or round
- 0.25 g Ground black pepper
Fish-free version
762 kcal · protein 32 g · carbs 51 g · fat 46 g
Quantities per person
- 90 g Sliced white sandwich bread
- 7.5 g Unsalted butter, 82% fat (200 g block)
- 35 g Kosher Emmental
- 20 g Mayonnaise
- 5 g Hot Dijon-style mustard
- 7.5 g Capers
- 10 g Gherkins / small pickled cucumbers
- 2.5 g Flat-leaf parsley
- 20 g Lemon
- 12.5 g Red onions
- 60 g Tomatoes, vine or round
- 0.25 g Ground black pepper
- 110 g Eggs
- 0.5 g Fine salt
Cooking tips
For a pan-cooked American-style tuna melt, assemble closed sandwiches with butter on the outside: bread, Emmental, tuna, Emmental, bread. Cook over a medium-low heat with the lid on for 3–4 minutes per side, until the bread is golden and cheese oozes at the edges; tuck in the cold tomato at serving. To take away, toast all 4 bread slices in the toaster in the morning without butter, then butter thinly while still warm. Transport the tuna filling chilled, with thinly sliced Emmental and tomato separately, and assemble just before eating. If an oven or mini oven is available, 6 minutes at 200°C is enough; avoid the microwave, which softens the bread. Without an oven on site, assemble cold with thinly sliced Emmental, or put the filling in a pitta with tomato and a little onion: it makes a good tuna sandwich, but not a melt. Eat the same day.
The tuna and cheese toastie of Israeli cafés, a cousin of the American tuna melt, sharpened with capers and lemon.
Comments and reviews
No comments published yet.
Share your experience
Your first name will appear with your comment. No additional email is required. Comments are reviewed before publication.