Fishy Fridays

Sea Food and Eat It

Tinned (canned) food has a funny reputation in England. It has connotations of flaccid vegetables, brown things and the war. Tins of food are associated with emergencies, with camping and with being cheap. In short, nothing about tinned food here is synonymous with ideas of quality.

Fortunately, this is not a universally held opinion. Having recently spent quite a lot of time in Spain and Portugal, it was exciting to see a totally different appreciation for tinned food and its possibilities. The star of the show is seafood, in almost more varieties than you can imagine, sealed up in little metal canisters and immortalised.

In Porto I visited the Nuri factory, and ate tinned sardines better than I knew possible. At Nuri, the sardines are selected in person from the local fish market every morning, before being filleted and packed into tins, all by hand. If the sardines that morning are not good enough, they don’t use them and no tins of sardines are produced that day.

You thought this was all about food, but my inbox is open if you want fashion tips too.

In Spain, supermarkets have whole aisles dedicated to tinned fish and seafood, everything from mussels to oysters to clams. There is also no prejudice against charging high prices for high quality tinned products, which is exciting because it means that, should you want to, you can find things like razor clams and fatty tuna belly.

The tuna I grew up eating was the colour of paving slabs and so dry that it needed to be lubricated with vast quantities of mayonnaise to make it edible (this is not a complaint, it's delicious, fight me). For a long time, I thought all tuna was like this, but now I am mature, now I know better. Hidden behind the beautiful packaging and typography is a whole world of buttery soft, pale pink deliciousness. Actually, tinned fish labels are so well designed I’m convinced there’s a secret cartel organised between graphic designers and fisherman.

Tuna is the fish of choice for today’s recipe because this will work even with regular supermarket stuff, and still be tasty. I would say though, that if you can get your hands on some of the quality goods (Ortiz is probably the most widely available high-end brand here) then please try it. You’ll see the difference immediately. The same advice goes for the chickpeas, the jarred kind will take you far.

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Marinated Tuna with Chickpeas

(serves 2)

1/2 a Red Onion, finely sliced

1.5 Tbsp Sherry or Wine Vinegar

2 Tins of Tuna, drained

30g of Green Herbs (Parsley, Chives, Oregano etc), roughly chopped

2 Eggs

1 Jar (700g) Chickpeas

A knob of Butter

A few dashes of smoked paprika

Half a Lemon

Add the sliced red onion to a bowl along with the vinegar and a pinch of salt and stir to make sure the onion is well covered in vinegar.

Add the drained tuna, the chopped herbs, a generous drizzle of olive oil, a nice pinch of salt and pepper and mix again. Leave that to one side.

Soft boil your eggs however you like. I always use Delia’s method here.

While your eggs cook, pop the chickpeas into a small saucepan over a medium heat (you may not need a whole jars worth, but if you cook them all now they’re fine in the fridge for a few days).

Add some of the liquid from the jar, a pinch of salt and a knob of butter and gently warm the chickpeas through, you don’t need to boil them (remember that the good jarred chickpeas will be well seasoned already). You want them a bit saucy but not swimming in liquid.

Spoon the warm chickpeas onto a plate. Taste the tuna and add more salt or vinegar if needed, then spoon the mix over the chickpeas and sprinkle with a pinch of paprika.

Top with a soft boiled egg, some cracked black pepper and a drizzle of olive oil, squeeze over the lemon and enjoy. Great with some toasted bread.