I can't believe I didn't share this: tuna confit

I LOVE tuna. I absolutely adore it. In sushi, grilled, in salad (good or bad, to be honest), any whichwhat way, I love it. Of course, these days we all have to watch (and I hope you are), that we are not eating bluefin tuna, or participating in the mindless slaughter of this magnificent creature. You can read up about this, you don't need Annalena to get on her soapbox and preach. I WILL say, that the line "well, the fish is dead already and I'm only buying one pound of it," is NOT an acceptable retort. If only 600 people went the right way and said "this is WRONG," that animal would still be alive, and breeding.
Other species are more plentiful. Do your research. Make sure you're eating a species that is sustainable, and don't overdo it. Although I love tuna, I don't eat it more than, perhaps, once every two weeks. We all have to do our part.

Ok, enough with the philosophy, to the dish. My absolute favorite way to have tuna is what I call a "2 minute steak." A very thick piece of the mid portion of the fish, a very hot grill pan, oiled. Down goes the fish, one minute. Up comes the fish, the other side, one minute. Then onto the plate. And that is all.

There are alternate points of view on this, however, especially in the Northern parts of Europe, where tuna is cooked "well done." Now, let's be clear about something. Well done here CAN be "done well," if you do it right. If you are going to cook a tuna steak all the way through, cook it gently. In other words, braise it. But don't braise it in water, or liquid like that. Nope. Braise it in flavored oil. We're going to do that here, and it's going to take some time, and some work, but you'll be glad, especially if you are going to be doing something like salade nicoise, and you just don't want to do something as simple as opening up a can of oil packed tuna (although Annalena gives you leave to do that, if you follow the above rules and you get good quality stuff).

Let's make the oil first. It doesn't really pay to make it in smaller than three cup quantities, so get three cups of extra virgin olive oil. Now, you don't need the stuff that costs a small fortune a pint for this. Get good stuff, not great stuff. Put it in a pot, and add the rind of a lemon, a couple of sprigs of rosemary, a bay leaf or two, about a half dozen sprigs of thyme, and about ten peppercorns, and two teaspoons of salt. Bring the heat to low, and raise the temperature to 140-150. A probe thermometer is really helpful here, but if you don't have one, figure about five minutes of very low cooking. Then, turn off the heat, and let this steep for 20 minutes.

When the steeping is over, put up to pounds of good quality tuna steaks in a pan or pot. Try to use one that is NOT so wide, because you're going to drain the oil, so that the solids stay behind, and pour it over the tuna. The fish should be covered with the oil. If it's not, sigh and add more. Now, do the same thing you did in prepping the oil: bring the temperature up to about 140-150. Then, turn off the heat and cover the pot. In the space of about ten minutes, you'll see the fish go from bright red, to the brown color you get when you cook tuna. Turn it over, bring up the heat again, for only 3 minutes, and then turn it off. Let the whole thing cool down, and then refrigerate the tuna, covering it with the oil.


You can keep the tuna like this for over a week, which is something you can't do with fresh tuna, of course. Putting anything "sott'olio" will preserve it for a while.

You can use this tuna for any application you might want to use canned tuna, but don't waste it in tuna salad. Yes, a nicoise salad is nice, but how about crumbling it up (and it does crumble), with cooked shell beans in pasta, which is how we'll be having ours.

There is one drawback to this dish: the oil is not usable for anything. I have tried. The fish taste is just really, really strong, and it doesn't suit for dressings, etc. IF you have pets who will accept tuna (our cats, interestingly enough, will not), I would suggest you add this, in tablespoons, to their food. It will improve their coats and their digestion and if the critters are subject to periodic "whoopsies" from grooming themselves, this will cut that down, too.

Give it a try. You will enjoy.