Filetti di Tonno: Fresh Tuna Filets

Italy, and especially Sicily has a long tradition of fishing tuna. Indeed, all along the Sicilian coast there are villages called tonnare that people would inhabit during the tuna season; when the tuna arrived (they're migratory fish) the men would take to the sea, stringing nets that hung down from the surface like curtains, forming a corridor that guided the tuna into a final net with a bottom strung between the boats. Once the school was in this "chamber of death" the men would pull the net to the surface, bringing the tuna with it, and the mattanza -- slaughter -- would begin, the sea running red as the villagers gathered much of the animal protein they would need to survive the coming year.

Some they would can, but there are also many recipes for fresh tuna. For example,

Tonno Ammuttunatu

To serve 5:
A tuna filet weighing about 2 3/4 pounds (1.2 k)
A pound (450 g) fresh peas
An onion, sliced
A head of garlic
A small hot pepper
A few fresh mint leaves
2 tablespoons tomato paste, diluted in a little water
Flour
Aged caciocavallo or provolone cheese, flaked
Olive oil for cooking and frying (or other oil for frying if you prefer)
Salt
Cut the filet into five pieces; make a slit in each and insert half a clove of garlic, a mint leaf, and a piece of cheese.

Heat a quarter cup of olive oil in a pan and sauté the onion until it becomes translucent gold; add the diluted tomato paste and the peas, and cook, seasoning with chopped garlic and mint to taste, and the hot pepper, until the peas are done.

In the meantime heat oil for frying in a second pot, lightly flour the pieces of tuna, and fry them briefly. Drain them well and add them to the peas to finish cooking, over a low flame, for 15-20 minutes.

Serve at once.

Tuna on About:
Filet de Thon au Beurre de Gigondas

How to Select Fresh Fish
Other fresh tuna recipes
Other Fish Recipes