Caviar of toro

Some posts ago I wrote about toro-spread with sour dough crackers. It was a great find to make spread from toro, o-toro of course. So simple as a preparation that it made me wonder why I had not thought of it before. And it was good. No, it was not just good, it was simply fantastic. Yet, after I had done it a few times it made me restless. I couldn’t sleep. The flavor was remarkable, especially with not too oily tuna belly that had been rested enough to put on those complex tastes so typical for tuna belly. It was like the ultimate baby food, which perhaps perplexed me since by default I don’t like baby food appearance in food. Good as it was, there was something missing. It was begging for contrasts and complexity to fulfill its true potential. Over the course of a good week, I tried what seemed to be everything with it. Every time the inescapable conclusion was that it was best in its most natural state with the sourdough crackers. But something was missing.

So I started to think about other preparations and in particular caviar of aubergine. Really good caviar of aubergine is not the usually mashed aubergines that most restaurants serve or most recipes result in. A great caviar of aubergine is quite time consuming to make. The result is like a symphony of tastes and colors where each of the added components, aubergine, onion, tomato, basil, anchovy, caper and what else that is added can be sensed when eating it.

I didn’t have to think twice what to include in this caviar of toro. Confit tomato, nori, parsley, lemon juice, sea salt, black pepper, finely diced sweet onion and a dash of olive oil seemed so totally obvious. And tuna belly of course. Well I hesitated on the black peppar. The wild Madagascar pepper was an option, because it is so good with tuna belly, but I settled for the Sarawak pepper.

I also wanted a condiment. Like a wasabi but different, totally different. So the old basil/horseradish/Greek yoghurt recipe seemed a great option. It was.

So this is how it is done. You need:

• 300 grams of raw tuna belly
• Confit tomatoes – Made with tomato wedges from deseeded and skinned tomatoes. Best is to use tomatoes that can be skinned without blanching. Drizzle the wedges with mild olive oil (Ligurian taggiasca) and sprinkle some sea salt on them. Roast at 70 C until they are ready and have lost most of their water, which is to say that when dicing them with a sharp knife they will not shed water.
• Nori – One leaf of nori is enough. It needs to be toasted on the stove.
• Parsley – (Flat leaves)
• Olive oil – Ligurian olive oil is the best for this recipe. Unripe Tuscan oils will ruin this preparation, like they usually do with most preparations
• Lemon
• Sweet onion – Preferably Cevennes onions
• Sea salt and Sarawak pepper for seasoning
• Basil
• Fresh horseradish
• Fat Greek yoghurt (10% fat or more)

Make the basil-horseradish condiment first as it needs to rest in the fridge for a good hour. Simply mix basil with Greek yoghurt with a hand mixer. A Bamix is advised. Add grated horseradish. The flavor should be that of basil but there should be a hint of horseradish but only so much that when eating it you need to think twice before uncovering the flavor of horseradish. Pass it through a sieve to make it smooth. Season with salt. Cover with cling film and let it rest in the fridge for a good hour or more.

Dice the onions finely. Rinse them thoroughly and leave them in water for a few minutes. Rinse again and let the diced onion dry up on a towel. This is good procedure for onions to be used raw in any recipe since it removes the aggressiveness of the onions that can be overwhelming in some preparations. Cut the confit tomato in cubes sized 5*5 milimeters. Dice the nori. For this a very sharp knife will be needed, if not needed, the nori has not been sufficiently toasted. Dice the parsley. Pass the belly through a tamis or a not too fine meshed sieve.

I haven’t put any exact proportions of the ingredients, because there is no exactness here. You simply have to add the different components and taste after each of them. Start by adding some lemon juice and olive oil to the passed toro. Blend in the diced tomato, then the nori. Continue with the parsley, then the onions. Be careful not to overuse onion. Season with the Sarawak pepper and sea salt. The idea is that the tomato and nori flavors should so to speak stick out every now and then when eating this. The other flavors should play in the background.

Plate it and serve with sourdough crackers. How many people the recipe is for? I don’t know. The portions always seem insufficient.

If you can’t get toro? It is not the end of the world. Try a blend of smoked and raw salmon.