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Sicilian tuna tartare – tartare di tonno
What better way to celebrate the tuna season than with one of my favourite dishes, Sicilian tuna tartare. Unlike the indulgence, length and fervour of spaghetti with cuttlefish ink sauce, today’s offering is almost Buddhist in its simplicity, not that Buddhists probably get through boatloads of raw tuna. Expect it would wreak havoc with their karma. Not with mine, I’m glad to report. To say this is old-school Sicilian would be a lie. A modern classic maybe, insofar as that actually means anything. It only started popping up on menus here about five or ten years ago, although now any decent fish restaurant will offer it. Strangely, though, it’s not…
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A fresh Sicilian summer salad for tuna
The devil is in the detail, as the saying goes. The original version of the phrase was actually “God is in the detail”, so whichever way you look at it, details clearly make a difference. Today’s recipe is a perfect example of this. It would be a simple tomato and onion salad, were it not for the capers, mint, and above all lemon zest. But it’s precisely these minor additions that make the salad worth telling you about. And nor should we overlook the most important detail of all: this is a salad for tuna, not a tuna salad. A salad for tuna but not a tuna salad? Perhaps some…
