Breton Tuna and White Bean Gratin

As described, this is a four pot recipe: skillet, bowl, food processor, gratin dish. Use a cast iron frypan & roughly mash the beans with a potato masher in the pan. Take off heat before adding the tuna, chile and cheese. Bake in the frypan. Save time, energy and water by cutting out most of the washing up.

Pureed half the beans and skimped a little on the milk a bit to make it a bit more stick-to-you-ribs. Double the tuna if you use the 5.75-oz cans (use oil from one, not both) for a heartier autumn dish on a cloudy, cold day (here in Sweden we have a few). I used regular breadcrumbs, so I assume panko would have been better. Also added canned mushrooms and peas for a little roughage. NO butter on top. I liked this one a lot.

The version in the Telegraph includes the oil from the tuna.

Yummo! Can be dressed up (add a dash of worcestershire sauce or white wine) or down (skip the cream & chile). The only thing I disagree with in this recipe is all the scraping into this or that bowl or skillet. I just add everything to the same skillet, one by one, cook then plunk in the casserole dish. First thing in is the chile to season the oil. Later, the beans smush up pretty easily on their own; no need for the food processor. And the tuna goes into the same skillet too. Yumm.

Drain oil from tuna? Help! I would drain it moderately for any other recipe, not so much as to press the tuna dry.

This was very good. I used one jar of the Tonini tuna (6.7 oz), most of the liquid from one can of Great Northern beans, 3 Tbs of half&half and Jarlsberg cheese. I also included the olive oil from the tuna (~ 2 Tbs). Instead of dragging out the food processor, I just smushed half of the bean mixture with a potato masher. The texture was great - not soupy at all. Tasty, hearty and quick for a weeknight dinner.

I haven't eaten cat food, so wouldn't know. Top grade tuna with beans, olio, savory alium seasonings, cream and gruyere....that won't equal catfood in my book.

Looks and tastes like cat food.

We loved this. I used one can of beans and one can of tuna to serve two people. We had some left over and it reheated nicely. I didn’t have Gruyere and used grated cheddar. I did not do the food processor step, just kept the beans whole. It was a lot less to clean up because I could mix everything in the skillet.

There is an excellent tuna in olive oil from Italy, brand is, I think, Tonino, 7 oz. in a glass jar. Pricey, though. But the best, in my opinion, for salads such as Nicoise.

I used two 5 oz. cans of tuna, undrained -- the olive oil-packed tuna didn't have much liquid. Used Great Northern beans for the white beans. Next time I would drain both cans of beans -- the dish was a little soupier than I would like. But delicious nevertheless.

So this is a crazy thought, but how would this be on a party buffet, in place of a hot dip?

Nice rustic dish with modifications. Only roughly mashed one can of beans. Left the other can unstrained and not mashed. A ten oz. jar of good Italian tuna worked nicely. Doubled the cheese. Sprinkled the breadcrumbs wit a pinch of thyme. Going to eat leftovers with flatbread brushed wit za’atar and olive oil.

I followed the chefs' notes here and am very surprised and delighted by this dish. I was sort of dreading it, but mashing half the beans (and draining one can of the two) gave a hearty texture. I used three 5oz cans of yellowfin tuna in oil and drained some of the oil off each one. I also added 10oz of mushrooms. The end product is warm and rich, aromatic from the garlic and onions, a real treat for a cold winter evening. I would make this again, it's so unique!

This would function very well as a hot dip smeared on slices of toasted baguette. I made Melissa Clark's Instant Pot Garlicky Beans the day before and used some leftover beans for this recipe. It was SO GOOD! I think it needs more cheese than 1/4 cup though, so will add more next time. And I will also try only pureeing half the beans for a less dip-like consistency.