A Decently Complete Brunch: The Humble Tuna Salad

I always feel some pressure to impress whenever I have company over at my house. Regardless of the fact that I only ever invite my closest or, at least, good friends who I know are understanding enough and are not wont to criticize my hosting skills at all, the pressure is always there, especially when it comes to the menu. One  recent "discovery" I had, being your average "cook," was that you can actually serve a decently complete brunch with just the tuna salad as your main dish, and that there's a good chance that your guests will not be unimpressed. The main thing to note is that you do NOT serve your plain old  tuna and mayo concoction, but rather use a recipe which gives your tuna a LOT of personality. But before that, here's how your impressive little brunch service would look like:

With your tuna salad nicely placed in a nice looking serving dish, you can serve your guests the following: 

1. A nice green salad - serve some arugula, sliced tomatoes and sliced cucumbers so your guests can make bake their own.

2. Fried bread sandwich - brush some slices of two kinds of multi-grain bread with butter and fry on a non-stick pan for 2 minutes on each side. Serve this beside your green salad items for your guests' selection as well. This will take your tuna sandwich to a new level of deliciousness. That's just my opinion, but I really feel you should trust me on this ;-)

3. Canapes - lay out a tray of Ritz crackers and top with your tuna salad, garnish with a teeny sprig of cilantro.

Spruce up your brunch spread by adding a pitcher of Lemon-cucumber water on your beverage tray where you have some self-serve coffee and tea and voila! Easy peasy, don't you think? Now let's get back to your pièce de résistance, the tuna salad. 

Ingredients:

Canned tuna, drained

Minced Onions (about 2 Tbsps for every can of tuna)

Minced Celery (about 2 Tbsps for every can of tuna)

Pickle relish (about 2 Tbsps for every can of tuna)

Melted butter (about 1 Tbsp for every can of tuna, melt in microwave)

Mayonnaise

Sugar

Salt 

Pepper

Paprika

Steps:

1. Mix your onions, celery and relish together.

2. Add tuna flakes and mix thoroughly.

3. Pour and mix in melted butter, then mayonnaise. Mix completely.

4. Add salt, black pepper and sugar to taste.

5. Garnish with  a dash of paprika on top.

The best part is you can prep most of these the night before, so you don't have to wake up extra early to get everything ready.

For the lemon-cucumber water, just put slices of one lemon, slices of half a cucumber, and a tablespoon of white sugar in a glass pitcher. Fill it three quarters with cold water and let sit in the refrigerator overnight. Add tons of ice when ready to serve.