Homemade tuna in oil

Say goodbye to cans and find out how to make tuna in oil. Not only is it delicious, but it's also simple to prepare!

Who would have ever imagined that one of the ultimate dinner savers , tuna in oil, could be prepared at home? Yet it is, and it's not even too difficult. It goes without saying that the result is not even remotely close to what you are used to because homemade tuna in oil has a completely different taste : delicate but rich in flavour, prepared with fresh tuna steaks it maintains all the flavor of the sea.

So if you have always wondered how to make tuna in oil (but even if you had never even remotely thought about it), this is the recipe for you. Get some fresh tuna , boil it in water and once cooked and cooled, distribute it in glass jars, then filling them with quality oil . These are the only two ingredients you need to obtain tuna in oil that will keep in the pantry for up to three months .

• Tuna in oil: recipe
• Variants
• Conservation
• Origin and history

How to make tuna in oil

1. First, wash the tuna steak well, also removing any blood residues. In fact, during cooking they tend to form unsightly lumps. To make sure it is perfectly clean, rinse it several times in a bowl full of water until it remains clear.
2. Then bring a pan full of salted water to the boil (the salt seems like a lot but it is needed to prevent the tuna from remaining tasteless) and dip the tuna steak in it, calculating 60 minutes of cooking starting from the time it starts boiling again.
3. Gently drain the fish with a slotted spoon and place it on a plate.
4. Transfer everything to the refrigerator for a minimum of 12 hours and a maximum of 24 before proceeding with the recipe. This step is used to obtain a dry tuna which therefore keeps better and for longer.
5. After this rest period, cut the tuna into fillets with a knife or break it into pieces with your hands and distribute it inside sterilized glass jars .
6. Cover with oil , making sure no air bubbles remain, position the plastic tamper then close with a new cap.
7. Place the jars in a sufficiently large pan and fill it with water so that there are at least two fingers above the caps.
8. Bring to the boil for 30 minutes , then let them cool completely before drying them and placing them in the pantry. Wait a month before consuming to give the tuna time to develop flavour.

Here is a short video with all the steps of the recipe. The timing is slightly different but a lot depends on the size of the slices as well as personal tastes.

Variants

We have given you the basic recipe but no one is stopping you from flavoring the oil or cooking water with aromatic herbs and spices. Juniper berries, bay leaves , pink pepper and lemon zest are excellent in this sense.

It is also possible to steam the tuna steaks (cut them into slices of a maximum thickness of 2 cm) for 10 minutes . In this case, a couple of hours of drying in the refrigerator will be sufficient before proceeding with packaging. Be careful though because in this case the tuna will be without salt.

Conservation

Tuna in oil can be stored in the pantry for up to three months . Once opened, however, it is better to place it in the refrigerator and consume it within 3-4 days.

Tuna in oil: who invented it?

The first traces of tuna fishing date back to prehistoric times as evidenced by the graffiti present in the Grotta del Genovese on the Egadi islands. Later in time, around the 5th century, the Greek playwright Aristophanes also mentions it in his texts.

We will still have to wait a long time for the birth of tuna in oil although the tuna fishery , initially understood only as the set of nets used for tuna fishing and then also as a processing place, has always been typical of the Mediterranean. Today the tuna traps have fallen completely into disuse since the schools of fish are intercepted off the coast, however it is precisely in these places that tuna in oil was born.

To be precise, canned tuna was born in Favignana , Sicily, at the hands of the Florio family (yes, the same protagonist of the novels and TV series Leoni di Sicilia ). In 1841 the far-sighted Ignazio Florio purchased what was destined to become the largest tuna fishery in the Mediterranean. It was he who invented an innovative tuna processing method and expanded the factory by introducing an area dedicated to conservation. And it was he who patented the famous key-opening tin which was presented at the Universal Exhibition in 1891.