My friend V likes to refer to herself as Queen V as she shares the name of one of England’s famous rulers. I too share a name with a former Queen of England (she of the lace) but, well, V got there first, so, I have to make do with sharing my nickname with a comic strip and musical heroine. Sigh. No matter though since every woman is Queen of her domain, it doesn’t really matter who gets the cooler nickname… I mean, that’s so junior high!
As I’ve mentioned before, QV has quite the way with all things piscine. While we were all up in Vermont, she introduced me to her wonderful tuna pasta salad. Now, if you’re anything like the boy, you’re sitting there thinking to yourself, “There is NOTHING 
wonderful about tuna salad.” And, you’d have every right to say that. It seems a lot of people had very early, truly traumatizing run ins with tuna in childhood. But, if you like say, tuna melts, or even salad nicoise, please give this salad (or your own variation) a spin. It’s easy as heck, light, healthy and darn tootin’ tasty.
As I was telling QV I had made her salad she sorta looked blankly at me and said “That’s not my salad anymore, that’s your salad now!” So, now I hand it off to all of you, to make it your salad (feel free to keep calling it the Queens’ Salad however).
Head below the jump to find out how to make the Queens’ Salad.
The Queens’ Pasta Salad
prep time: 15 minutes ~ cooking time: 3-10 (depending on your pasta)
- Small pasta, like farfalle or wee cheese raviolis
- 1 clove Garlic
- 1 bunch Mint, washed and picked
- about 1 teaspoon’s worth of Mayonnaise
- Olive Oil
- Lemon Juice
- Salt
- 1 can or pouch drained water packed Tuna
- Capers
Cook the pasta according the directions and then run under cold water to help the pasta cool off. Set aside to drain.
Pop the garlic, mint, mayo, a healthy glug of olive oil, a few splashes of lemon juice and salt to taste into the bowl of a Cuisinart and let ‘er rip. (You can also do this by hand if you’d like, by chopping the mint and mixing everything together, or heck, you could even do it in a mortar and pestle if you’d like).
Place the tuna in a bowl, top with pasta, pour the sauce over it all and top with capers to taste. Mix well, sit down in front of the TV (preferably while watching Hell’s Kitchen), and enjoy!
Now, don’t you just feel like a Queen?
You know, I’ll bet that would go smashingly with a mint mojito!
The mint and capers are interesting touches which work for me because I have tons of mint in my garden and deep faith that everything is made better by capers. I am looking forward to making this.
s’kat — it went smashingly well with the Pimm’s Cups we were drinking at the time
Julie — even if you don’t try it with the tuna, try tossing the mint in everything. Up until QV introduced me to this dish, I had always considered mint a good match to only: lamb, beets and cachaca. This was an absolute revelation to me… let me know what you think!