Food
Kimchi Tuna Melt
Lesson time 14:54 min
Embrace the simplicity of the steps to this mashup of Korean flavors and diner food.
Students give MasterClass an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars
Topics include: Tuna Salad • Grilling Your Tuna Melt • Plating
Preview
ROY CHOI: Warning, this class contains some bad language. [MUSIC PLAYING] We're making tuna melts but not just any tuna melt. We're making a kimchi tuna melt. I know some of y'all might be thinking, I paid for this class to learn how to cook. What do you mean a tuna melt? How hard can that be? But this is a recipe that's all about technique. You'll be able to apply skills and care that you'll learn in this chapter to almost any sandwich you make. So stick with me on this one. I promise you'll have a good time and learn some new tricks along the way. I really love making sandwiches. I think this dish is probably really the essence of how I really cook. The two things that I love the most are the Midwest and diners, and this is, like, the perfect combination of all that. I know I'm an LA kid, but if I ever had another shot at life, I would just want to be a casserole Midwest person making tuna melts and eating at diners all day, which is really the way I would love to eat for the rest of my life. What we have here, very simple ingredients but beautiful ingredients. We have our sourdough bread. We have our cheddar cheese. We have our butter, our kimchi. We have our minced scallions and our small diced minced celery. We have our cans of tuna, little bit of salt over there for the tuna salad itself. I have one premade here, but I'm going to show you how to make it. We have our Tabasco, mustard, mayo, and salt and pepper to pull it together. So let's get to cooking. [MUSIC PLAYING] The first thing we want to do is we want to drain our tuna. You can use water or oil packed tuna. It doesn't make a difference. I really learned how to make a tuna melt early, early on in my cooking chef career. I started out in really busy restaurants in New York City and stuff, but very early on, I ended up deciding to change my career path and cook in small resorts and country clubs. And one of the biggest sandwiches that we made at the country club was a tuna melt. This recipe has its origins from that, but then it also has some variations. So first thing you want to do is you want to drain your tuna out of the can. You know, I know there's going to be an exact recipe for this in the course guide, but to me tuna salad is always made from the hip, you know. It's kind of like one of those foods that you just kind of make with your eyes and intuition, and hopefully through these lessons, you'll develop that intuition if you don't already have it. And you'll be able to cook kind of freeform, freestyle like this, you know. So we want to add our tuna, our celery, our scallions. We're going to add our mayo. This is a Japanese mayo that I use. It has a little more egg yolk in it so touch sweeter, touch more luxurious in a sense. If you can and you can access it and I think in the world now where everything can be delivered, you can probably find it but just always use the Japanese mayo. It's just going...
About the Instructor
Roy Choi wasn’t trying to start a revolution when he took tacos, kimchi, and more to the Los Angeles streets with the Kogi BBQ taco truck. He just wanted to make what he loved and knew by heart: immigrant-influenced all-American food. Now he’s teaching you his recipes, sauces, and techniques. Learn how to cook with your instincts using equipment you already have—and start adding your own twist to tried-and-true favorites.
Featured MasterClass Instructor
Roy Choi
Food truck “godfather” Roy Choi teaches you his signature recipes and mother sauces—then empowers you to make them your own.
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