I am not sure why I bought a tin of Campbell’s Condensed Cream Of Mushroom Sauce a few months ago. Perhaps it was on special. Perhaps it was for the design. It was unlikely to be for the soup. Maybe it was the “Base of 1000 Meal’s” vibe the tin gave off. I was aware that the gelatinous soup after all was rarely watered down to make actual soup as per the basic cooking instructions. Instead it was used to make stuff like the Tuna Pasta Bake as advertised on the back of the tin.
As a child Campbell’s Cream Of Chicken condensed was a regular staple of my mothers repetoire. In particular a whole tin would go in her chicken stews. When I later made chicken stew to her recipe, I realised there was something ridiculous about adding a condensed, flavour saturated soup to a stock you had been lovingly preparing for four hours. I don’t use the tin any more.
But back to the back of the tin. A mushroom soup based tuna dish seemed highly suspicious, but in the spirit of experimentalism I went ahead. Lots of pasta shapes (classy, it does not specify a shape) cooked, drained. Then add the tin of soup, a tin of tuna, 200ml of milk, some spring onions (I also added a couple of prawns, some peas and the odd carrot because it seemed a bit short of veg). Decant to shepherds pie dish, grate over lots of cheese (50/50 Cheddar Parmesan in my case) and grill.
The result? Well a passable fish pie type of slop. With a crisp green salad it made an okay sort of lunch. If I were to do it again however, I would possible add more white fish and maybe tweek the veg content (maybe sweetcorn?). Oh, and one thing was blatently clear. It tasted too artificially of mushrooms. So my advice. Do exactly what it says on the tin, but swop the mushroom soup for a more generic white sauce. Or just make a fish pie.