Saturday, January 29, 2011

Endive Tuna Boats

I figured I could get one more entry into the January Kitchen Play contest, still sponsored by Endive.com. This required another trip to the store - or actually two stores. The first one had a sign, but no endive. Either there's been a big run on endive in my town, or they aren't stocking much of it.

Usually the endive is nestled right next to the radicchio, which makes it easy to find, since the radicchio is purple in a sea of mostly green. Anyway, I scored a couple more teeny endive and then decided to to a riff on a drink recipe. Without doing the drink.

The drink in question was called the Hail Caesar Endive Cocktail and it featured and endive "yacht" that included clams.

I decided to scrap the cocktail entirely and play with the yacht. But I downscaled mine to a boat and used canned tuna as the seafood component. As an homage to the tomato based drink, I garnished mine with some salsa for a little acidic kick.

My first idea for the "boat" was tuna salad in the endive leaves, but I decided to do something a little less smoooshy, so I left the components unmixed. And instead of the typical mayonnaise dressing, I sliced some avocados to add the fatty, creamy component. I think it worked out well.

Endive Tuna Boats

1 endive
1 can tuna of your choice
1 avocado
Tomato salsa, for garnish*

Remove any ragged leaves from the endive, and separate into individual leaves. When they get too small for use as "boats," you can slice them into ribbons for use as an additional garnish on the boats, or toss them into your salad.

Thinly slice the avocado flesh and lay a few pieces into each endive leave. Spoon tuna in the center of the boat, and top with salsa, to taste.

* if you don't like spice, used some diced bits of tomato instead.
Yum

1 comment:

Sheila Ann said...

Donna - those look great! What a simple starter or cocktail party nibble.

Post a Comment

I love to hear from you! Thanks for commenting!