Tuna

This is my version of the famous Baja taco gobernador, which is a shrimp-stuffed quesadilla. The marlin adds a distinctive smoked flavor that makes this a very special kind of quesadilla. If you must substitute, you can use canned tuna—just make sure it is well drained, and cook the filling an additional 4 minutes to allow the moisture from the tuna to evaporate.

This is a simple, refreshing dish that perfectly represents the current trend in Baja-Mediterranean cuisine: the fusion of local ingredients and cooking techniques with European (mostly Mediterranean) ingredients, with an occasional Asian ingredient showing up in the mix. Variations of this dish pop up in restaurants all around Mexico, some adding spicy avocado dressing or fresh orange juice to the mix. I like to keep it simple to let the fresh taste of the ingredients shine through.

An Italian brunch wouldn’t be complete without a pasta dish. Campanelle pasta is named for the church bells it resembles, and the nooks and crannies are great for trapping sauce, making every bite delicious. If you can’t find campanelle, any small shaped pasta will do. There are lots of bold flavors in this pasta salad, the base of which is canned tuna. Although it’s definitely more caloric, tuna packed in olive oil rather than water gives the salad a much fuller, richer flavor.

These sandwiches are out-of-this-world fantastic! They’re my take on a tuna melt, complete with gooey cheddar cheese and a sweet-and-sour mayo, but with plenty of lemony tang and peppery arugula. Be sure to slather it on the bread generously before piling on the tuna steak, greens, and cheese to keep everything moist and delicious.

Nowadays most experienced home cooks grill tuna, but there are alternatives. Top of my list is tuna au poivre, yet another recipe that plays on tuna’s similarity to beef steaks. How finely to grind the pepper turns out to be a matter of taste. Mine dictates “coarsely ground” as opposed to “cracked.” That is, ground to the point where there are no large pieces left, but not to the point of powder. The coarser you make the grind, the more powerful the result will taste.

Slow cooked onions are good enough by themselves, but when you combine them with the liquid exuded by olives and tomatoes you have a gloriously juicy bed on which to serve any fish fillet or steak. This combination, I think, is best with grilled tuna or swordfish—their meatiness gives them the presence to stand up to the richly flavored mass of onions, creating an easy dish that is strikingly Provençal and perfect for summer.

A useful technique for any dark-fleshed fish, including whole mackerel or bluefish (which may be stuffed with the onion mixture), steaks of Spanish mackerel, or fillets of pompano; adjust the cooking time accordingly. I really like pasta before this—something quite simple, like Pasta with Pepper and Cheese (page 547) or Pasta with Broccoli Raab (page 552).

This is a more complicated use of miso, useful not only for fish but for meat (just substitute tenderloin for the tuna). I learned it from Japanese-born chef Tadashi Ono, who now lives in New York. His dual lives encouraged Ono to take a few liberties of the type that few would take in Japan, with a classic sauce like this one; but if this is fusion cooking, it’s the good kind. The Japanese chili paste called tohbanjan is strictly traditional here, but you can use Vietnamese or Korean chili paste or simply cayenne. I love this with Basmati Rice with Shiso (page 510).

This classic combination of beans and tuna is great when made with white beans that have been cooked with garlic and other spices, like White Beans with Garlic (page 441). If you use bland or canned or frozen beans, jack up the seasonings here; add, for example, a bit of garlic, some fresh thyme, and/or a little cayenne. A great picnic recipe, this can be made well in advance; note the green bean and salami variations, which are also good. Any of these salads would be great toppings for Crostini (page 41) as well.

One of those wonderful from-the-pantry pasta dishes that can be prepared in the time it takes to boil the water and cook the pasta. Canned tuna is not only acceptable but necessary; but the ideal tuna here would be that taken from the tuna’s belly, the fattiest part, and cured (preferably by your Sicilian grandmother) in great olive oil. Assuming you don’t have that, buy tuna packed in olive oil from Italy or Spain. (In a serious specialty store, you might find belly tuna—probably labeled ventresca—packed in olive oil. It’s dynamite.) What you’re looking for is dark, soft meat that will flake nicely and add its rich flavor to the sauce.

Like Moroccan briouat, Tunisian briks use warka, a phyllolike wrapper, to contain a filling. This one is most commonly filled with a whole egg—a spicy sort of poached egg in a thin, crisp shell—rather great. Tuna is a nice complement to the egg filling, but you can do without it. These are best eaten hot, but beware of egg running onto your shirt—which is exactly what happened to me. If you use warka or phyllo, keep it covered with a damp cloth while you work. Egg roll wrappers need no special treatment, but they’re not as thin or crisp.

A street snack of Central America and the Caribbean, empanadas can really be filled with anything you have on hand. This recipe and its variations offer several of the traditional fillings. Masa harina can be found at most supermarkets and Latin grocery stores. It adds a nice crunch to the dough, but regular flour works well, too.

Puttanesca sauce originated in Naples and derives its name from “ladies of the evening.” The story goes that, between clients, the women of the evening in Naples would make this quick and delicious pasta dish. The easy procedure and simple ingredients—found in the cupboard, most likely—created a quick dish they could make without any major interruption of business. This dish was big on the Italian American restaurant scene in the seventies, I guess because it called for authentic Italian ingredients that were newly available then. Cured olives and cured capers are used a lot in southern Italy, to deliver a wallop of flavor with a small investment, and so this traditional dish continues today in Italian homes and restaurants across America.

When traveling through Sicily, you will often encounter tuna or swordfish rollatini—or involtini, as the Sicilians call them. It is a traditional dish. What makes the dish particularly delicious and interesting is that they roll the rollatini in seasoned bread crumbs before grilling. The way I prepare the rollatini, they get a marvelous range of flavors by marinating before grilling in garlic, olive oil, and fresh thyme; then I smother them with a fresh tomato-and-lemon salsa after they’ve cooked (and try not to eat them for a couple of hours). The longer they sit—before and after grilling—the more flavorful they become. This is also a versatile preparation. Make as many rollatini as you want from a big piece of tuna, as I explain in the box, and schedule their marinating periods and quick grilling to your convenience. Serve them hot off the grill or later, at room temperature, when they taste even better. One rollatino makes a beautiful first course; two make a satisfying main course; a few rollatini slices make a terrific tuna sandwich for a picnic. And if you want to enjoy these any time of year—or if you don’t have a grill—just pop them in your oven (see below).

Marinara with the addition of canned tuna and capers makes a great pasta sauce.

Marinara is my quintessential anytime tomato sauce. I can start it when the pasta water goes on the stove and it will be ready when the pasta is just cooked. Yet, in its short cooking time, it develops such fine flavor and pleasing consistency that you may well want to make a double batch—using some right away and freezing the rest for suppers to come. The beauty of this marinara sauce is that it has a freshness, acidity, and simplicity of taste, in contrast to the complexity and mellowness of the long-cooking tomato sauce that follows. This recipe for marinara includes lots of fresh basil, which I keep in the house at all times, now that it is available in local supermarkets year-round. I cook a whole basil stalk (or a handful of big sprigs with many leaves attached) submerged in the tomatoes to get all the herb flavor. Then I remove these and finish the sauce and pasta with fresh shredded leaves, giving it another layer of fresh-basil taste. (If you are freezing some of the sauce, by the way, you can wait until you’re cooking with it to add the fresh-basil garnish.) This sauce can be your base for cooking any fish fillet, chicken breast, pork fillet, or veal scaloppini. Sear any of these in a pan, add some marinara sauce, season with your favorite herbs, and let it perk for a few minutes—you’ll have yourself a good dish.

Though it cooks for only 15 minutes, this tomato sauce gets loads of flavor from both the tonno and the olio of your marinated tuna. But you don’t want just to boil the tuna and tomatoes together: it is essential to add the fish, the oil, and all the other ingredients to the big skillet at the right time. The technique of skillet sauces, and how to finish pasta and sauce together, is explained in depth on pages 89 to 93. For this chunky sauce, I recommend a short dried pasta with lots of nooks and crannies, like cavatelli or campanelle or conchiglie. These will catch some tuna for you with each bite, so you don’t end up with all the tuna swimming in the bottom of your bowl.

This is a special salad worthy of your homemade tonno sott’olio. You blanch the tomatoes and scallions, and briefly sauté the red onion to mellow pungency and soften textures. The salad needs a good hour of marinating to let the sweet and savory flavors mingle. Incidentally, leftovers make great juicy sandwiches. I recommend white balsamic vinegar here, to wilt the red onion and dress the salad. White balsamic is not a traditional product, but it comes from Modena, like any decent balsamic, and it has a clean taste and a light color that don’t muddy dishes the way dark balsamic can. If you can’t find it, use regular wine vinegar. You may also use top-quality canned tuna in this salad, but drain and discard the packing oil and substitute fresh extra-virgin olive oil in the dressing and sauté.

Canned tuna is a staple in my kitchen—in one of the cupboards, there’s always a tall stack of colorful cans of excellent Italian tonno in olio di oliva. Tuna packed in olive oil is the only kind to have, in my opinion, and I make it the basis for many meals, sometimes some pasta for lunch or dinner, or a salad for myself, my mother, and Gianni, or sandwiches for the kids. But when I want the best marinated tuna, I make my own marinated tonno sott’olio: I poach thick tuna steaks gently for 15 minutes, let them cool and dry for a couple of hours, then pack the fish in jars in big chunks, submerged in extra-virgin olive oil. It is truly simple, as this recipe will show you. If you love tuna, then I know you will make this recipe your own. Just a chunk of it on a plate, with nothing more than a drizzle of the marinating oil, makes a great antipasto. Or dress it up with onion or tomatoes, as I suggest for Marinated Mackerel (pages 4 and 5). Use it in the colorful salad I give you here with cherry tomatoes, red onion, and scallions, or see how tonno sott’olio takes your own favorite tuna salad to a new level. And don’t miss the opportunity to make the outstanding pasta sauce with tomatoes on page 14. With this recipe you’ll have about 2 pounds of tuna, in jars or crocks of oil. Stored in the refrigerator, it will keep for a month or more, giving you plenty of time to try it in several different dishes. But I guarantee you’ll want more: to make larger batches, just multiply the ingredients and follow the basic procedures.