Blog Archives
ffwd: fresh tuna, mozzarella, and basil tartelette
For the past three years, I’ve been cooking my way through Dorie Greenspan’s cookbook Around My French Table along with the rest of the French Fridays with Dorie crew. With hundreds of recipes in the book, one cannot love them all. Last week, I was intrigued yet uninspired by Floating Islands (meringues on a pool of custard). I was feeling the same ennui about this week’s recipe, but didn’t want to skip two weeks in a row.
The selected recipe this week is Fresh Tuna, Mozzarella, and Basil Pizza. I like all the individual ingredients in this recipe, but I was having trouble imagining them all together in one dish. You never know until you try, so I plunged right in.
The main ingredient in this one was fresh tuna. I’m a big sushi fan so I have no objection to eating raw fish, but I anticipated sourcing sushi-grade tuna to be challenging. There’s a Japanese grocery that sells sushi grade fish, but I didn’t have time to get there this week. I only needed a little bit of tuna because I was making just a single serving for lunch. My game plan was to buy some prepared sushi at Whole Foods and cannibalize slices off the top of a few rice balls. I was pleasantly surprised to find sushi-grade tuna in a freezer case in the fish department instead.
The base for this fusion pizza is supposed to be a disk of puff pastry. I had a mini-tart crust hanging around my kitchen. When I made a tart last week, there was some extra pastry so I’d made a mini crust but hadn’t had a chance to fill it yet. This seemed the perfect opportunity to use it.
With the crust and tuna ready, the rest of the preparation is a snap. Lightly sautéed scallions are spread on top of the crust. Then slices of tuna, fresh mozzarella, and basil leaves are alternated decoratively around the crust. This would be enough for a beautiful tart, but then the tuna is topped with cherry tomatoes, olives, and freshly grated ginger. The tart is slipped into a hot oven for a few minutes to slightly cook the fish.
There’s no doubt that the fish tart was very pretty too look at. Unfortunately, I found the flavors a bit conflicting (or anachronistic, to quote my friend Lauren – you know who you are). On the one hand, the tuna and ginger are reminiscent of sushi. On the other hand, the tomato, mozzarella, and basil scream Salad Caprese. Sushi and Italian is a bit too fusion for me. My other complaint is the basil. After a couple minutes in the oven, any exposed edges turned black. I think this would work better to add the basil after it comes out of the oven.
The concept works. I particularly liked the base of sautéed scallions. I wouldn’t rule out a second try that firmly stands in one flavor profile. While I didn’t try the puff pastry bases, I really liked this with the pâté brisée. I’m even inspired to make a batch of mini tart shells to play around.
If you’re curious about how other Dorista pizzas turned out, follow their links here. Happy Friday!
Tasty!
ffwd: wheat berry and tuna salad
I think I remember making a tuna salad with lentils for French Fridays with Dorie around this time last year. This time around, the week’s selection is a composed salad featuring a wheat berry and tuna salad. Tuna = Independence Day must be a Dorista theme.
As best I can tell, wheat berries and farro are interchangeable, though not exactly the same thing. I couldn’t discern the actual difference from my reading, other than farro coming from Italy and typically being more expensive. Maybe it’s the actual varietal of the wheat. That said, I spied quite affordable “10-minute farro” for sale at Trader Joe’s. Dorie mentioned a quick-cooking version being available in France, so I decided to try out my find instead of continuing to scout for wheat berries. Also, I had tried out a different farro salad recipe last week (which didn’t come out so well, so I won’t bother to share), and the farro took FOREVER to cook. In the middle of our current heat wave, the 10-minute cook version was perfect.
This is ideal hot weather food. The only cooked parts are the grains and the hard-boiled eggs. I cooked both of these the night before when the air was slightly cooler. I also mixed up the mustardy dressing while I waited.
The farro is tossed with the dressing, the tuna, and a variety of colorful vegetables. I went with what I had: a stalk of fennel (plus the fronds) instead of celery, some radishes (instead of an apple), scallions (instead of onion), and the called for green pepper. The salad had a festive confetti look.
I do have to say, I don’t understand chunk tuna. I usually use solid white or albacore. I was out of tuna, so I just bought what the recipe called for. When I opened the can, it reminded me of cat food. There weren’t any distinguishable chunks, just some mushy tuna. Maybe it was the brand I bought. It certainly wasn’t like what I was expecting. Fortunately, it tasted fine in the salad.
This composed salad starts with a bed of salad greens tossed with some olive oil. I planted 24 heads of lettuce in my vegetable garden, and they all seem to be ready at once. Right now, anything with salad greens is a good plan for me. The greens are topped with the wheat berry and tnna salad. Finally, halved cherry tomatoes, diced avocado, and hard-boiled eggs garnish the top.
This was a gorgeous summer lunch. I made individual platings for the two of us, but, for a bigger crowd, I can see serving this on a platter for everyone to dig in and take what they like. As with so many of the recipes we try in this group, this is another springboard for an infinite stream of similar salads. Just choose your favorite grain salad and toppings and you have a beautiful meal.
To see what other Doristas thought of this recipe, check out their posts here. We don’t post the recipes, but you can find it in Dorie Greenspan’s book Around My French Table.
For those of you enjoying a long holiday weekend to celebrate the 4th of July, I hope you are having fun. If it’s hot where you are, I hope you are staying cool and well-hydrated. For everyone else, Happy Weekend!
A Plateful of Happiness 