(This is for when it’s sunny out and you feel like you can achieve anything in the world, or for when you’re stuck at home and have canned tuna in your shelf.)
In Fall, I used to get footlong tuna from Subway very often, it was the closest thing to Old’s Cool’s tuna sub which was (and still is) my favorite.
So I’ve been home for 14 days now and earlier this week I was trying to find new recipes to cook, ended up breaking this thing down. (Really, it was supposed to be beef and rice this week with premium meat from Austin’s farm but we have a lockdown in Atlanta and my friend is hence happily stuck at home so tuna it is. Woeful days.)
The only toppings I ever get from Subway are onion, lettuce, bell pepper, pickles, tomato but even otherwise putting it together should be easy enough. I’ve also never done such a thorough cost-breakup before so this was fun.
Never doing it again.
Ingredients (and price break-up)
Roti : 30 nos. for $8ish from Halal store (they’re small but they’re Haldiram’s so stop complaining)
[$0.267 each]
Tuna : 5oz can at $3.68. I had earlier used half of the canned tuna to make a coconut + tamarind curry (if you saw the shredded fish in the gravy you’d deem it a desecration but there’s nothing like craving meencurry during a quarantine. Also never doing that again.)
This is approximate but you’d need 1/8 of the can for a generous topping on a roti.
[$0.46]
Bell Pepper : $0.99 each. Used one half for 4 portions, chopped into cubes. I also I cannot believe they were Rs. 4 each in Karol Bagh. They were like Rs. 10 back home, but that seems okay now. Also, too much green in your topping is a sham.
[$0.12]
Onion : $2 for a 2lb bag with 6-7 onions. I diced around one half.
[$0.17ish]
Ketchup, mayonnaise.
Kitchen Equipment : Microwave, included with the apartment so add your monthly rent here. Jk. I will not let you sabotage my student economics.
Including taxes, it adds upto $1.1ish or less.
How-to
Scour the surface of the roti with a fork/knife so it doesn’t puff up in the microwave*. Heat roti in microwave for 1min 30sec so it’s crispy and can hold the tuna salad topping.
Mix tuna, bell peppers and onion in mayonnaise, spread ketchup on roti and top with as much tuna mix as you want. I can’t eat more than two at a time, that’s too much tuna for me which is also why I don’t get the footlong anymore.
The first bite was so similar to a Subway that I was disappointed – do they really use canned tuna from Walmart? I guess getting Subway sandwiches only makes sense if you get better toppings on yours, I’m just the sad boring customer.
It was in fact better than my subway because I could finish it faster so the bread would never get soggy from all that salad.
Missed pickles, did not miss tomato. Maybe if I broke down more dishes they’d come out nice too.
* Giving credit where due : Roti pizza from Bon Appetit.
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