Recipe: tuna salad with smoked olive oil
Tuna and avocado: the two seem to have been made for each other. Raw tuna, grilled tuna, canned tuna… add a perfectly ripe avocado and you almost have a feast on your hands. Almost, that is… because with smoked olive oil, it’s truly party time.
Smoked olive oil, when properly made – without any strange additives or essence that is – is an incredibly delicious flavour booster. Valderrama’s Smoked Arbequina is ‘cold-smoked’ in a smoke cabinet using a mixture of hay, oak shavings and various herbs. A method that has been used in Finland for hundreds of years also turns out to work perfectly with olive oil. Especially when you use it subtly. Less is more, because the flavour is strong. So use it sparingly, and the aromas will come into their own in the most refined way.
How to make it
- Divide a generous amount of lettuce among four bowls.
- Cut the tomatoes into small wedges and divide them among the bowls.
- Halve the avocados, remove the stones and cut them into cubes or slices. Add half an avocado to each bowl. Drizzle a little sesame oil over the salads and add some fresh lemon juice.
- Heat a frying pan and briefly toast some sesame seeds in it. Remove the seeds and add a splash of sesame oil to the pan.
- Rub the tuna with a little sesame oil and season with a little pepper and salt.
- Then coat the tuna with the sesame seeds.
- Is the oil hot? Briefly fry the tuna on both sides until the sesame seeds are lightly browned. Remove the tuna from the pan.
- Cut into beautiful slices and divide among the bowls. Drizzle sparingly with the smoked olive oil.
- As a finishing touch: add some toasted sesame seeds on top. Again tomorrow?
Also read:
