The New English Kitchen: Changing the Way You Shop, Cook and Eat. Rose Prince
2 tablespoons pine nuts
480g/1lb frozen whole-leaf spinach, defrosted and the water
squeezed out
2 tablespoons olive oil
1 tablespoon lemon juice
salt and freshly ground black pepper
Dry-toast the pine nuts in a frying pan until lightly browned, then set them aside in a bowl. Warm the spinach through in a pan and add the oil. Transfer to a dish, season with salt and freshly ground black pepper and scatter the pine nuts on top. Finish with the lemon juice.
canned food
Canning is ideal for certain foods, a good and pure way to store them without preservatives. It can even improve them in some cases – skipjack tuna being an example.
skipjack tuna
I could never understand why anyone would want to eat a lot of seared fresh tuna. Half the time it is dry and tasteless and, when buying it, it can be hard to tell how long it has been out of the water. What’s more, at the current rate of consumption, blue and yellow fin tuna will soon go the way of the dodo. Blue fin – the type favoured by the Japanese for top-quality sushi – is at an all-time low, while yellow fin is in serious decline. The only tuna not listed as endangered is skipjack. The standard of canned skipjack tuna varies from dubious and disgusting small flakes that look like factory-floor sweepings in unidentifiable oil, to tender fillets that, when packed in the tin, look like the cross section of an old tree trunk. This tuna is far superior and has a light texture, because it does not absorb too much oil. The unique double-cooking technique – before canning and then again when the sealed cans are heated to preserve the contents – seems to improve and tenderise the flesh. It can then simply be softly flaked into a salad or sandwich, or made into a delicately flavoured fish cake.
choosing tuna
Trawling for any fish using nets puts other wild species at risk of getting caught up in the gear, but the risk is greater to these lovely mammals when netting tuna. Check labelling on cans to be sure it contains ‘dolphin friendly’ tuna, looking for mention of monitoring by the EII (Earth Island Institute). The ‘dolphin safe’ motto you may find on cans from North and South American tuna fisheries is not, according to marine conservationists, so closely monitored. In coming years, the EII hope to develop a logo to make it easier for shoppers.
Catching tuna by pole and line is the only truly sustainable means. Not all ‘line-caught’ tuna is sustainable. Ask for hand-lined, troll-caught tuna; or tuna caught on long lines that are ‘seabird friendly’. It is currently very difficult to tell what fishing method was used for catching skipjack tuna. This is because it is a commodity – like coffee or tea – traded on a world exchange. It’s a system of trading that undermines efforts to conserve the tuna numbers. If well-managed fisheries are not rewarded, why bother? In the coming years the Marine Stewardship Council hope to certify the pole and line tuna fisheries as sustainable – watch out for their logo on tins and jars.
You can also find handline-caught albacore – a pale, delicate-fleshed relative often dubbed ‘white tuna’, and found mostly around the coast of Spain, Portugal and France (see the Shopping Guide).
Always buy tuna packed in either olive or sunflower oil, draining it away before you use the fish.
tuna cakes
Lovely, delicate cakes to eat for supper – tuna-loving children will adore them. Serve with a green sauce (see here).
Serves 4
3 tablespoons butter
3 tablespoons plain flour
300ml/1/2 pint milk
180g/6oz canned tuna, drained
2 shallots, finely chopped
juice of 1/2 lemon
2 tablespoons freshly grated Parmesan cheese
dried breadcrumbs (see here)
sunflower oil for shallow-frying
salt and white pepper
Melt the butter in a small pan and add the flour. Cook gently for a minute, then remove from the heat. Gradually stir in the milk, then cook, stirring, until the sauce thickens and finally boils. Remove from the heat, add the tuna, stirring to break up the flakes, then add the shallots, lemon juice and Parmesan. Season with a little white pepper and the barest pinch of salt. Refrigerate the mixture until very cold, then roll it into a cylinder shape, about 4cm/11/2 inches in diameter. Cut it into pastilles 2.5cm/1 inch thick and roll each one in dried breadcrumbs. Shallow-fry the tuna cakes in sunflower oil for 3–4 minutes on each side, then drain on kitchen paper.
tuna salad with skinless tomatoes
I mix preserved tuna with lots of herbs, lemon juice, and virgin olive oil if necessary, then add black pepper and a few capers and eat it with tomatoes. The secret, by the way, of great tomato salads is skinning them. Note to the ‘time sceptics’: it takes 3 minutes to skin 4 tomatoes. This is how to do it: nick the skin of ripe tomatoes with a knife, submerge the tomatoes in boiling water for a minute, then drain and push the skins off. They have a wonderful way of homogenising the dish, absorbing the olive oil and the flavour of the herbs and allowing the tuna to stick to them.
kitchen note
Add drained, canned cannellini or haricot beans to make a more substantial plateful.
other uses for tuna
canned anchovies
The best-quality anchovies have a sleek, carefully handled appearance, and come from artisan fisheries. Spanish groceries are a good source of the best, which come packed in olive oil (see the Shopping Guide).
anchovy butter
Melt this butter over green beans, haricots or even a dish of hot new potatoes. If you like anchovies, make a pot and keep it, covered, in the fridge.
Serves 6
150g/5oz unsalted butter
60g/2oz canned anchovies
4 sprigs of parsley, chopped
freshly ground black pepper
Soften the butter in a bowl with a wooden spoon. Drain the oil from the anchovies and pat them with a paper towel to remove any extra. Chop finely, add to the butter with the