ALBACORE IN OLIVE OIL WITH CRUSTY FRENCH BREAD

My father had a fishing boat at the coast ever since I was in grade school so we ate a lot of seafood and home canned tuna and salmon. You cannot buy canned tuna from a grocery store that comes anywhere close in flavor to home canned tuna, and last year I worked what we pay to can our own since my father is now 80 and doesn’t have a boat any more I buy it at the coast from a fisherman or from the local fisherman’s market and after buying the tuna and the olive oil that we like to can it in it still comes out to almost the same cost as the canned albacore at the store costs and is 10 times better, in fact I can’t hardly eat store canned tuna any more. It isn’t that difficult to can, and canning is not my bag, but it is so good that I guarantee you won’t want to eat store tuna any more either once you try it. If you do I recommend the method of baking the tuna in the oven before canning it in olive oil as it keeps a lot more of the flavor than I you pack in the jars raw even if you do can it in olive oil. The tuna in olive oil is an instant snack right out of the jar. I was first introduced to this when I went to Spain a very long time ago. They would just open up a can of tuna and crumble up the meat and mix it into the olive oil, spread it on fresh crusty little slices of French bread and dip it in a little more olive oil for a quick lunch with a glass of wine and a bowl of green olives. Yumm! This recipe makes 4 appetizer portions or 2 or 3 lunches.

TUNA TAPAS

16 ounces canned albacore tuna in olive oil, or a 16 ounce filet baked in the oven

4 slices of leafy green lettuce

Jar of Spanish Green Olives

Jar of roasted red (or Spanish pimento) peppers

Baguette type loaf of French bread

Olive oil

If you can’t find any high quality canned tuna just buy fresh albacore sprinkle it with salt and bake it in the oven at 350 degrees until it is done, and that will depend on the thickness of the fish, approximately 20 to 30 minutes. Remove the tuna from the oven and let it cool down. Then gently break it into about 2 ounce pieces and place them in a bowl and cover them with olive oil for several hours or overnight. When you are ready to serve this place the pieces of tuna on the lettuce leaf on individual serving dishes, place some Spanish green olives on the side as well as a couple of pieces of roasted red pepper and drizzle the olive oil over them and serve each of your guests one of these plates along with the sliced French bread, serve the rest of the olives and peppers in a bowl on the table and serve extra olive oil for guests to add as they like. I like to crumble the tuna up so it soaks up maximum oil and dice up the pepper to sprinkle on top. The tuna straight on top of the bread and eaten like an open faced sandwich is A ok also!