23.10.07

great balls of tuna.

















By the bye, the "tuna meatball" recipe I talked about here is enjoying a bit of the limelight here on MSNBC. The featured version is not Kenny's version (though it was good), or Mara's version (pictured above), but Mr. Oliver's original version. Try it, it's great...I think it's what we're having for din-din vanavond.

EDIT: Regarding different grades of tuna for this recipe and baking vs. frying, Mara had the following to add in an email to a friend (and since she has been the polpettrice every time "we've" made this, well we should listen to her):

i think they want you to use fresh tuna, but mark and i have made it only with good quality canned (or even just john west) and there was no discernible difference from the time our friend made it with fresh. also, in the recipe i think you're sauteing the fresh tuna with the cinnamon and the spice gets infused in this way - if you're using canned, just increase the cinnamon by at least another tsp (maybe more). and toast the pinenuts separately. also, i have always baked my meatballs, so this is another option instead of frying which can be a god-awful mess. maybe 175C for 25-35 minutes?

And to answer your unasked question: yes, I've been reduced to rummaging through Mara's sent emails to get cooking tips.

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2 comments:

Klary Koopmans said...

They look good! Do you use the pangafillets that are in the pic instead of tuna?

MEM said...

Hiya! No, that's just an irrelevant bag of pangafilet sitting on the counter.

We've experimented with a number of different tuna options: Kenny used fresh tuna, and we've since tried it with both high-quality tinned tuna in olive oil and once with crappy John West tuna in water...

And I think we've decided that the difference in taste between canned and fresh is not significant enough to warrant the extra cost of fresh. I've added some commentary from Mara to the original post on this subject....