Tuna Aurora

From: Margaret Kettlewell
To: Richard Kettlewell
Subject: tuna aurora
Date: Fri, 17 Dec 2004 18:51:34 -0000

For two people:

• 120g macaroni, cooked and drained
• Half an onion, chopped *
• 28g flour
• ½ teaspoon salt
• ½ level teaspoon dried mustard *
• 120g grated cheese
• 56g butter or margarine OR olive oil OR the oil drained out of the tuna can on opening plus a knob of butter or marg.
• 280ml (half pint) milk
• 70g oz tom puree
• pinch (or more) pepper, any sort. A bit more if not using mustard.
• 200g tuna from tin
• 2 tablespoons bread crumbs *

* optional

If using onion, fry it gently in the butter or margarine for a few minutes, until soft. If not, heat the butter or margarine to melting point.

Add the flour and mustard if used, cook gently while stirring until it is bubbly and then add the milk, a bit at a time, stirring a lot to blend things together, cooking between each addition, until you have a nice sauce. Boil it for a couple of minutes. Use an egg whisk on it at the end if it is lumpy.

Stir in the flaked tuna, tomato puree and most of the cheese (in that order).

Stir in the macaroni.

Place in a greased, fireproof dish. Sprinkle the rest of the cheese, and the breadcrumbs (if used) on the top.

Place under the grill for a few minutes, keeping your nose alert for burning, or in a hot oven for 10 to 20 minutes, depending how much time you have and also how cool it is by the time you get round to doing this, to get it heated through and brown on top.

This is a store cupboard meal: several ingredients are therefore optional and you still get a tasty dish if you omit all of them. If you want to increase the number of portions to a reasonable 3 or a thin 4 while sticking with one tin of tuna, you can safely increase the macaroni, cheese, tomato puree and milk by up to a quarter again.