Delia Smith’s tuna salad is her white bean and tuna salad: cannellini beans dressed while warm in a sharp lemon, garlic and crushed black pepper dressing made with some of the tuna’s own oil, then piled on rocket with chunks of tinned tuna and thin rounds of red onion. The dried beans need soaking overnight and a long, gentle simmer, so start it the day before.
It began as her husband’s recipe for tonno e fagioli in the Complete Cookery Course, made with haricot beans cooked with carrot and herbs and served on crisp lettuce. When she rewrote it for her second How to Cook book in 1999, she swapped in cannellini, put rocket underneath and added the lemon pepper dressing, and that’s the version on the card.
Her third How to Cook book suggests it as the winter salad when you have people round, so it suits the colder months better than most salads do. You get creamy, soft beans soaked in a peppery, lemony dressing, big savoury flakes of tuna and the sharp crunch of red onion.
Delia Smith’s White Bean and Tuna Salad
Course: SaladsCuisine: ItalianDifficulty: Easy4
servings8
hours20
minutes1
hour40
minutes540
kcalFrom How to Cook Book Two (1999), page 156: dried cannellini beans in a lemon pepper dressing, with tinned tuna in oil, rocket and red onion. These ingredients make a main course for 4, or a starter for 6.
Ingredients
- For the salad:
250g (9oz) dried cannellini beans
2 x 200g tins tuna in oil
25g (1oz) rocket, stalks removed
50g (2oz) red onion, peeled and sliced into thin rounds
salt and freshly ground black pepper
- For the dressing:
grated zest of 1 lemon
3 tablespoons lemon juice
1 rounded teaspoon black peppercorns
2 cloves garlic, peeled
1 tablespoon Maldon sea salt
1 heaped teaspoon mustard powder
3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil
3 tablespoons oil from the tins of tuna
Directions
- Soak: The night before, put the beans in a bowl and cover them well with cold water.
- Cook: Next day, drain the beans, put them in a large saucepan and cover with fresh water. Bring up to a simmer and boil for 10 minutes, then cover and simmer gently for 1¼ to 1½ hours, until soft right through.
- Drain: Meanwhile, tip the tuna into a sieve set over a bowl and leave it to drain, keeping the oil.
- Dressing: Crush the garlic with the salt in a pestle and mortar until the garlic is pulverised, then work in the mustard powder. Push it to one side, add the peppercorns and crush them fairly coarsely, then add the lemon zest and juice, the olive oil and 3 tablespoons of the tuna oil, and whisk everything together well.
- Dress: Drain the cooked beans, rinse out the pan and put the beans back in. Pour the dressing over while they’re still warm, stir well and season generously.
- Serve: Spread three-quarters of the rocket over a serving dish and spoon the beans on top. Add the tuna in chunks, tuck in the rest of the rocket, lay the onion rounds over the top and serve straight away.
Notes
- The prep time counts an overnight soak of about 8 hours, and the hands-on work is only about 20 minutes.
- Her Italian Collection makes the same salad with 400g of best-quality tuna in oil from a tin or a jar, and serves it as a starter for 6.
- Leftovers keep, covered, in the fridge for up to 2 days, which is my own limit.
FAQs
Can I use tinned cannellini beans?
You can, but Delia wouldn’t. Her pulses chapter calls most tinned pulses inferior, often over-sweet and slimy, and keeps them for short-cut dishes at a pinch.
If you do, I’d use 2 x 400g tins, rinsed and drained, and warm them through in a pan before the dressing goes on, which is my own shortcut. Warm beans take up far more of the lemon and pepper than cold ones.
What if I forget to soak the beans?
Use her quick soak instead. Rinse the beans, cover them with plenty of water, boil them for 10 minutes, then turn off the heat and leave them for 2 hours.
After that, bring them back to the boil and cook them gently for 1½ to 2 hours, until soft. Beans soaked this way take a little longer than ones left overnight, so allow the extra time.
Why won’t my beans go soft?
Most likely they’re old. Delia’s pulses chapter gives dried beans a year on the shelf at most, after which they may never soften however long you cook them, so check the date on the packet.
Overcooking is the opposite problem, as the skins split and the beans fall apart, so start testing at 1¼ hours. She also now adds salt while pulses cook for a better flavour, even though it can mean a little longer, while her early Complete Cookery Course said to leave it out.
Can I use tuna in spring water?
You can, though you’ll lose the tuna oil that goes into her dressing. She asks for tuna in oil every time, and in the Italian Collection for best-quality tuna in a tin or a jar.
With tuna in water, use 3 more tablespoons of extra virgin olive oil in place of the tuna oil, which is my own swap. The dressing will taste a little cleaner and less rich.
Which other tuna salads has Delia made?
Several, and her own pairing for this one is the salad niçoise, which she suggests for summer while this one takes the winter. Her How to Cheat at Cooking also has a Spanish tuna salad with peppers, olives and artichokes, made with jarred Spanish tuna.
For one person, One is Fun has a tuna pasta salad with tarragon and lemon, ready in about 15 minutes. It uses a 100g tin of tuna and 40g of wholewheat macaroni.
