A watercolour of a bowl of coarsely mashed white beans with flakes of tuna and small dark capers
Generated with OpenAI gpt-image-1
Adapted from Tuscan white bean purée, mashed by hand rather than blended

White bean and tuna mash

An established dish converted to shelf-stable ingredients. Every substitution is documented below.

How long it keeps

About 6 months, set by Olive oil.

Indicative, for planning a build before you buy. The answer for a pack you already own is the best before date printed on it, and that only holds if it has been stored as the label says.

Serves
3
Burners
0
Pans
0
Water
0.1 L
Active
6 min
Total
6 min

Ingredients

Keep a few spoonfuls of the bean liquid before draining. It is starchy, and it loosens the mash without thinning the flavour the way water does.

  1. Mash the drained beans with a fork, most broken, a few left whole.
  2. Garlic granules, lemon juice, pepper. Oil trickled in while stirring.
  3. Loosen with bean liquid a spoonful at a time until it drops from the spoon.
  4. Fold the drained tuna and the capers through last, gently, so the tuna stays in flakes.

Folding rather than stirring at the end is the whole difference between this and paste.

Serves 3 on crackers or oatcakes, 2 as a meal.

What this was adapted from

Tuscan white bean purée, mashed by hand rather than blended

  • a blender and olive oil emulsion → a fork and the bean liquid

    Smooth needs a machine. Mashing by hand gives a coarse texture and the starchy bean liquid does the loosening that a blender would do with oil alone -- less rich, more rustic, and four minutes.