oh god and now i’m craving a tuna melt.
i grew up in so. cal. and was well aware of tuna melts in all kinds of coffee shops.
cheddar would be my cheese of choice, rye or sourdough buttered (all sides) and grilled. i also like a grilled tomato sandwiched in between the melty cheese and the tuna…
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Try putting the assembled sandwiches without the cheese on a tray in the freezer for 40 minutes or so, and leave the cheese slices on the counter so they are at room temperature.
Preheat the broiler, top the cold sandwiches with the cheese, and pop them under the broiler and watch them carefully as the cheese melts.
I will bet you get what you are looking for.
I will also bet that your diner had the sandwiches prepped like this and in a very cold refrigerator so they could pull them out and just melt the cheese when they got an order, probably from a food safety standpoint. You have to be very careful with any mayonnaise based salads in a restaurant setting or it’s Salmonella City.
Yup. I was recently introduced to the idea of making tuna salad with softened cream cheese instead of mayo for that very reason. A little olive oil is added in that recipe, perhaps to loosen it up a bit. Apparently cream cheese is more stable than mayo. At least that was the reasoning I was given.
I would maybe add a little red wine vinegar or lemon juice to the cream cheese version in addition to the EVO. That would need some tartness for me.
The problem with mayonnaise is the eggs used to emulsify it. It is pretty much a perfect growth medium for little wobblies.
It does use lemon juice.
Commercially-prepared mayo is actually shelf stable and unlikely to cause any bacterial issues. The eggs used to make it are pasteurized and there is sufficient acid to make it an inhospitable environment for bacterial growth. The problem in mayonnaise-based salads is generally the meat/carbohydrate main ingredient (eggs, potatoes, tuna, etc.).
This was my understanding. Much more likely to become sick from eating eggs, potatoes or chicken that have been sitting around.
Propaganda sponsored by Hellman’s.
Yes the commercial mayo itself is stable and pasteurized and acidic but then you put things into it that are not pasteurized and alter the pH when you start making the salad.
And the vessels and utensils you use to make the salad, even if properly washed, are probably not sterilized. Or you leave the salad on the counter uncovered and something flys or floats into it.
Not to mention people licking the serving spoon and putting it back.
You will notice those articles say inhibit, not prevent, bacterial growth.
Once innoculated, if you leave it on the buffet at room temperature or warmer on a hot day, the formerly pasteurized commercial mayo with all the stuff in it is still a pretty good growth medium. It is more conducive to bacterial growth than a plain vinagrette for example.
If you are working in the food service industry you learn quickly to be careful with anything in mayonnaise or people will get sick. Seafood and chicken salads especially.
The growth curve is logarithmic, geometric, or exponential, so once the bugs get going they really take off.
By the way, let me explain how those “research” studies get funded.
Let’s say I am the brand manager at Hellman’s.
We conduct a focus group which shows people are not buying our product because they are worried about food poisoning.
Followup surveys show that this is a real problem, and is potentially eating into the category share at between 3-4 percent per annum.
I have a $ 230 million a year promotional budget for the product.
My food chemists tell me the commercial product is “safe”, at least as opposed to homemade mayonnaise. In this regard please note that “shelf stable” is an industry term that usually is not a positive attribute for consumers, yet it is repeated in the story here as though it’s a benefit.
I go to my group at Unilever and we decide to make a “donation” to commission an industry trade group located in DC to perform an “independent” study at the food science faculty at State College.
State College performs and duly publishes the study.
We then put either the industry trade group or our own PR people to work making sure a press kit with the research publication duly summarized in bullet points is made available to “food” journalists who are too lazy to read the study themselves and have never taken a food safety and handling course, much less a microbiology course, in their life.
The “journalists” who are having a slow day need a story idea and then there is this stuff from the industry trade group. Which has already been published at the NY Times because somebody took somebody out for an expense account lunch (hint Unilever’s headquarters are in New York).
The poor kid at the website/food blog who needs to pay their student loans and is fresh out of ideas says yeah, that mayonnaise story, that’s the ticket. After all it’s based on a study from State College and was in the NY Idiot Times, so it has to be true.
And the next thing you know some 25 year old kid at Epicurious with no further investigation is republishing the promotional research sponsored by the brand Group at Unilever, and has no idea that they are doing this.
And then we find it on the Internet, so it has to be true.
Let me put it to you this way.
Commercial mayonnaise actually inhibits bacterial growth as opposed to what?
Trust me, proper handling of mayonnaise based salads is a food service context is an important component of food safety courses.
The old thread reviver here!
A comeback? For me, the tuna melt never went away.
I embrace all tuna melt philosophies! Same with crab. 
For me a tuna melt is absolute. Poor mans comfort food in my 20 ‘s. Quality tuna was not a priority.
Today, it’s rye, potato or pumpernickel bread. Albacore tuna, made with Hellman’s mayo, pickle relish and fresh lemon juice. Swiss or Muenster cheese.
Assembly is to warm the bread in the toaster oven topped with cheese slices until bubbly. (Prepare the tuna ahead so it can chill.) Then top the tuna to the cheesy bread and enjoyed open faced.
I can’t read the article as it is behind a paywall.
Tuna melt never really appealed to me: too much mayo and too much cheese (or pasteurized process cheese food). However open faced loading up the tuna salad with veg, restraint with mayo, a slice of tomato, and a light hand with cheese and it is very pleasant.
Sounds equally appealing to me. I love a well built sandwich anytime of day. Portable foods are delicious and handy.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned it before, but have you seen the documentary “Sandwiches You will Love”?
Oops, mis-remembered the title slightly. That’s the one! It’s great.
