|
Good food has always been a
passion of mine, so much so that a couple of years ago I decided to
make it my profession. I spent a year at the prestigious Scottsdale
Culinary Institute learning the art of classic French cuisine.
I spent all last summer working under a classically-trained Chef in
a fine dining establishment. It was a great experience and I learned
a lot about food, I also learned fancy foo-foo dining doesn’t
impress me much, my roots in the trailer park run too deep.
Rocketry has also become a passion of mine, so it seemed natural to
combine the two. Imagine, I get to practice both the things I love
most all at once! And my TTA brothers get lunch to boot.
During the past few months I’ve developed my own take on cuisine,
simple comfort foods done exceedingly well, with a few new and tasty
twists.
So, I’ve decided to share some of the tips and techniques I’ve
learned with my fellow rocketry enthusiasts. Check back often as I’m
always working on new dishes...
Jim Rutkowski, Executive Chef
Trailer Trash Aerospace.
|
|
Melvin's Favorite
Spicy Tuna Salad
Well folks, after a lot of
urging from my TTA buddies here is a recipe of mine. When it's 105
deg in the shade people don't have much of an appetite, especially
for warm foods like chili or beans and weenies. So, I was looking
for something light, cool and crunchy, and let's not forget cheap. I
blew all my disposable cash on Melvin the past few weeks.
So,
rooting around in the pantry I found....Tuna! and Chipotles! WOO HOO,
half way home. A quick trip to Food City for the veggies and it's
time to cook.
I call this one "Melvin's Favorite Spicy Tuna Salad"
Start by draining the tuna, the more water you can get out the
better, I let mine sit in a strainer while I prepare the other
ingredients, it doesn't hurt to put a bit of a squeeze on it either.
I prefer the good chunk tuna but at $1.50/can, compared to $.50/can
for the regular stuff, but this is Trailer Trash Aerospace, not
snooty high dollar Hillbilly Rocketry, so I went with the cheap
stuff.
I figured on feeding 6-8 hungry rocketeers so I started with 6 cans
of tuna, to that I added 4 serranos chilies chopped fine, 6-8 good
sized jalapenos chopped coarse and 1 big red onion chopped somewhere
in-between. Always add good kosher salt and fresh cracked black
pepper at the beginning of such en devours to get the flavor going.
Anyway, it's time for the chipotles, start with 2 chopped fine, I
ended-up adding about 6 with a couple tablespoons of the
accompanying adobo sauce, like I said we like it hot. Mix this all
together and add some good mayo, Best Foods out west, Hellmans east
of the Mississippi, or better yet make your own, which I'll get into
later....kinda eye the amount of mayo, enough to bind things
together without making things sloppy.
A little more salt and pepper, squeeze in a lemon and add half a
bunch of minced cilantro if you like the stuff and then taste. It's
not the end of the world if this stuff is real hot, a few
hours/overnight in the fridge and it will calm down considerably,
you might want to heat it up with more chipotles or serranos if you
make it Friday evening for a Saturday launch.
It was so damn hot last Saturday *nothing* sounded good at the
launch so we headed back to Kevin's rocket shop to eat. I served the
tuna salad on tortillas with a big piece of Romaine lettuce and some
sliced Roma tomatoes. It was good stuff, kind of sloppy though, like
I said, it's important to thoroughly drain the tuna.
Shopping List
Canned tuna, packed in water
Serrano chilies
Jalapenos
Red onion
lemons
tomatoes
lettuce
cilantro
Canned Chipotles in adobo sauce
mayo
tortillas
And coming soon, The Story of Melvin The Wonder Rocket
|
