Throughout my life, I have had a strong preference for fresh food. During my entire childhood, my mom struggled with feeding me leftover ingredients, canned items, anything that I thought might be below the highest quality. I was a bit snobbish at times, I must say, because now I recognize what kind of foods can be reused and what can't be. But, if there is one ingredient I always avoided, and literally never tried before, it was American canned tuna. Disgusting. Whenever I saw that stuff, I was repulsed by its gray color. Even worse, the fact that it often came with one of my least favorite things in the world; processed mayonnaise!
But, one day I was hungry for lunch, particularly for fish, and I did not have many ingredients at my disposal. I checked the cabinet, and my Italian roommate had a few cans of tuna stocked up. I had heard before that Italian canned tuna was of superior quality to American canned tuna, so I figured I'll have a look and maybe, just maybe I would use the can, and like it. I found it promising that the can indicated that the tuna was preserved in olive oil, something I strongly prefer over processed mayonnaise! EW! So, I opened the can and was pleasantly surprised by the beautiful, pink color of the canned tuna! Wow! They had actually preserved the natural color of the fish! Excitedly, I tested out a bite and was immediately in shock. The flavor was briny, salty, not too fishy, and I thought at that moment, how wonderfully would this go with a pasta with other briny vegetables? I got out my olives, sundried tomatoes, garlic, and farfalle, and got right to it.
This was the perfect summer lunch, as it was certainly still summer here in Italy on the day I made this in mid-September. The mixture of the canned fish, garlic, and briny vegetables perfectly coated my farfalle. The tuna really was spectacular, and had a flavor as if it was just fresh tuna that had been marinated. Of course, the texture of fresh tuna is most definitely superior, but the canned variety was a much cheaper, satisfying substitute. I am happy to say that canned tuna here is delicious and has become a staple in my kitchen here in Italy.
My next tuna adventure came at another moment that I was short on kitchen staples, and I had been watching one of my favorite chefs and food journalists, Rick Stein, traveling Catalonia and Mallorca eating the best food on the eastern part of the Spanish Kingdom. I watched Rick eat fried balls of salt cod, which he proclaimed was one of his top three favorite Mediterranean dishes. Needless to say, this proclamation attracted me to his recipe, because as a proper New Englander, I love fish and anything that is fried.
I figured that despite my lack of salt cod at the time, I could almost certainly make the same dish with canned tuna, which I had become quite fond of! Rick used smashed boiled potato, flour, egg, parsley, and garlic, to give the balls more body, so I used those same ingredients, and replaced the salt cod with tuna. I deep fried them in oil and they came out to a beautiful golden-brown color. I paired the fried balls of tuna with a homemade spicy sundried tomato aioli (not processed mayonnaise!), and finally garnished the dish with olives. Easily one of the best things I've made in my Italian kitchen so far.
