Tinned tuna recipes
Piquillo pepper and Bonito salad
A warm salad from Olasagasti. Sauté a piquillo pepper in a tsp of olive oil with some sliced or minced garlic. After a minute, when the garlic starts to caramelise, add more piquillo peppers and some water until the mixture turns more sauce-like. Keep adding small amounts of water until the peppers start to break down. Remove the peppers and spread on a plain plate, then top with flakes of Bonito in escabeche, drained, and drizzle with extra virgin olive oil.
Tuna melt migas
Mix diced celery and shallots with mayo and Dijon mustard. Stir in the drained tuna. Add chopped parsley and a squeeze of lemon juice. Season with salt and pepper as you go. Divide into bowls. Dice two or three slices of stale bread into crouton-sized chunks, sprinkle with water, and pan fry until they’ve browned. Not too long if you like the migas chewy. Cover the tuna mix with the migas. Top with grated mature cheddar and grill until the cheese melts and starts to bubble and brown.
Tuna and beetroot salad | Radio 4
I made this tapa on Radio 4’s The Food Programme. Dice two large, steamed beetroots and divide them into two bowls. Add a teaspoon of mayonnaise onto each and lightly stir. Place the tuna fillets on top and garnish with chopped parsley. Ventresca - tuna belly - and tuna fillets work well in this recipe. Lay the tuna fillet on top rather than mixing it with the other ingredients. Recipe by Patrick Martinez
Gazpacho with Cantabrian Bonito| Olasagasti
Blanch and refresh 1 kilo of ripe tomatoes, then peel. Blitz along with ½ red pepper, ½ cucumber, 1 spring onion, a generous drizzle of extra virgin olive oil, a splash of white wine vinegar and salt to taste. Sieve into a jug and refrigerate until ice cold. Hydrate a handful of arame seaweed for 10 minutes. Alternatively, you can sauté it with soybeans and serve as a side with the gazpacho. Serve the gazpacho in bowls and garnish with large flakes of Bonito del Norte and seaweed. Recipe by Marta Mendia
Konpletu
The konpletu — AKA the complete — is a staple in Zamora bar in the Basque Country — a bocadillo or sandwich that combines Cantabrian-caught Bonito and Cantabrian anchovies. Drain a tin of Olasagasti Bonito in olive oil or escabeche and break it into big flakes, spread across a halved baguette and add two anchovy fillets and two piparra/guindilla peppers.
Spicy tuna salad bagel
Dice 1 dill cucumber, 1/2 a celery stick, a shallot and mix with chipotle Tabasco or Tabasco and smoked paprika, mayonnaise, Dijon mustard, lemon juice, salt and pepper - all to taste. Lay the Bonito del Norte tuna on top and sandwich in a bagel.
Empanada de Bonito
Dice one onion, one red pepper, one green pepper, and together with three cloves of minced garlic fry in two tbsp of olive oil on a medium to high heat for about 10 minutes, stirring in two tsp of hot paprika. Add three chopped tomatoes, turn the heat down a bit, and cook for five minutes. Add half a tin /200g of chopped tomatoes, two tsp of oregano, season with salt and pepper, cover and simmer for seven-ish minutes on a low to medium heat, or until the sauce thickens, stirring every now and again. Add three tins of Bonito del Norte tuna in salsa Catalana, and about 10 olives stuffed with anchovy paste, halved. Or any pitted green olives that you like. Simmer for about five minutes, then take off the heat, spoon into a bowl and let cool. Unroll two sheets of ready-made puff pastry, cut a rectangle from each. Spoon some of the empanada filling into the centre of one, leave about ¾ inch round the edges. Wet the edges with water or whisked egg. Place the other sheet on top and crimp round the edges with a fork, brush the pastry with whisked egg, pierce the lid (slowly) with a fork, and bake at 180c for about twenty minutes, or until the empanada is golden.