Barbara-Jo McIntosh believes if your cupboard is looking bare you won’t despair if you at least find tinned fish there. She says with little fuss, it can centre a wide range of dishes that will sate you, whether you just need a snack or require something to anchor a hearty main course.
To prove that point with a giant exclamation mark, she recently published a revised and updated version of her best-selling book Tin Fish Gourmet (Arsenal Pulp Press, $21.95).
The book was originally published by Raincoast Books in 1998 and sold more than 20,000 copies.
By Canadian standards that’s impressive, but it was not a surprise to McIntosh, an award-winning food professional and former restaurateur who owns and operates Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks in Vancouver.
“It was just right for the time. When I took on this project, it came from a place where I knew a lot people still cooked very basic and were not that adventurous in the kitchen,” McIntosh said. “They wanted dishes that used a few ingredients and could be made quickly.”
From a marketing perspective, all that made sense and still does today, as there continues to be no shortage of folks looking for simple ways to make delicious food. That plus an attractive design, appealing photos and new chapters and recipes for tinned fish and shellfish, such as salmon, tuna, clams, oysters, shrimp, crab, sardines and mackerel, makes the new edition of Tin Fish Gourmet even more appealing than the first.
Beyond knowing there would be a market for this book, another big reason McIntosh felt confident writing about this topic was because she’s been learning about it since she was a kid.
“Fish has been part of my life since I was five years old. At that time, my divorced mother began to date a man named Roy who was a commercial fisherman in the summer and a hairdresser in the winter,” writes McIntosh in the introduction to her book. “We began to eat a lot fish, and we also had great hair.”
They, of course, ate fresh fish when in season, but tinned fish was always around and meals made with it became part of her weekly diet.
“I had a working mom who made a rotation of dishes. Tuna casserole and curried shrimp were among them,” McIntosh said, adding that her grandmother’s salmon loaf is also deeply rooted in her memory.
Those appealing, comfort-food styles of recipe are her in book and so are others, such as creamy garlic and clam chowder and oyster pot pie. You’ll also find appetizers and foods great for lunch or a light dinner, such as sardine bruschetta, BCLT sandwich (bacon, crab, lettuce and tomato), and avocado, chickpea and salmon salad. With “gourmet” being in the book’s title, it’s not surprising that you will also find more sophisticated creations, such as salmon coulibiac, crab and goat cheese strudel and smoked mussel and chorizo paella.
McIntosh says the book is ideal for those with time constraints and/or budgetary concerns, whether they are students, parents or seniors. The book is great to keep on a galley-equipped boat or at the cabin, and it will even appeal to highly skilled chefs.
Evidence of the latter can be found in the foreword to the book written by Michel Roux, a French-born chef and restaurateur whose London restaurant Le Gavroche was the first in the United Kingdom to be awarded three Michelin stars.
“The first edition of Tin Fish Gourmet is my thrifty frisson, an indispensable little gem that has rarely left my side” Roux writes in the book. “This new edition offers even more endlessly mutable ideas that shine the limelight on the humble and underrated tin of seafood.”
Tin Fish Gourmet is available at book stores and online. For an autographed copy, visit Barbara-Jo’s Books to Cooks, 1740 W 2nd Ave., Vancouver.
Clam-Fontina Pizza
The aroma of this dish as it bakes in the oven is a wonderful preamble to how it actually tastes. A favourite recipe for pizza dough adds to the fun, but if you are in a rush, ready-made dough works. Either way, this is a homemade treat. Wooden pizza peels are available in most kitchen stores.
Makes: 2-3 servings
• pizza dough for 1 pizza
1/2 cup tomato sauce
1/4 cup pesto sauce
1 (5-oz /142-g) tin baby clams, drained
1/4 cup toasted pine nuts
1 cup grated Fontina cheese
Preheat oven to 500 F. Place pizza stone in oven on middle rack and preheat for half an hour. Flour pizza peel and spread dough on peel. If using a baking sheet instead of a peel, sprinkle with 1 Tbsp cornmeal and place dough on sheet.
Spread tomato sauce over dough, then spoon pesto sauce on top. Sprinkle clams, pine nuts and Fontina cheese over all. Slide pizza from peel onto hot stone and bake for 8-10 minutes or until edges of crust are nicely browned and cheese evenly melted.
Apple, Cheddar and Tuna Melt
The classic tuna melt was one of the first things I learned to make in high school. Proudly showing off my culinary achievement at home, I made several and promptly devoured them. It took a while before I could look at a tuna melt again, but this version rekindled my love affair.
1 (6-oz /170-g) tin tuna, drained
1 Tbsp mayonnaise (or more, as desired)
1 tsp lemon juice
1/4 cup diced red onions
1/4 cup diced celery
1 Granny Smith apple, peeled and finely cubed
• freshly ground black pepper, to taste
1 sourdough baguette
3/4 cup grated, aged cheddar cheese
In a medium bowl, combine tuna with mayonnaise, lemon juice, onions, celery and apples. Season with pepper and combine well. Slice baguette into 8 pieces about a centimetre thick. Cover slices with mixture, then sprinkle with cheese.
Place rack in top portion of oven and turn on broiler. Place slices on a cookie sheet and put under broiler for two or three minutes, until warmed through and cheese is bubbly and begins to brown. They burn easily.
Eric Akis is the author of Everyone Can Cook Everything. His columns appear in the Life section Wednesday and Sunday.
