20 - Basque-Style Tuna Belly Fillets [Ventresca de Atun a la Vasca]

Mmm.. Tuna, the meaty fish. Ok.. so its not Tuna Sashimi but honestly any Tuna is good in my books. Apparently overly so as I was wandering round picking ingredients for our Tapas meal determined we needed a can of it for a recipe we had already decided not to make. I put it down to stress this past week but sense was nowhere near my brain on this shopping trip. I have also never seen a deli assistant so confused as when we asked her for three good slices of ham. That is what the recipe said and we ended up with six fairly decent slices, morality unknown and a shop assistant that really didn't know how to deal with us. It was fun because I was cooking for someone other than myself. This is nice, not only because its a nice saturday thing to do but because the whole ethos of tapas is to eat together. Even if they do have a better phone camera than me. I do maintain that no matter of the quality of these photos [all pretty awful but thats not really the point] that no Instagram will be used in the making of this blog. Its also nice because I have found in the fish section that one gets away from the standard yellow and red colours and verge towards the greener hue of food. Its rather odd but most of the food I have made matches the Spanish flag. Variation is nice...

The Verdict:

As much as the Tuna was the hero of this dish and all the flavours worked well the addition of green peppers let it down. Its not that I dislike green peppers but there is a muskiness to them which I always find strangely overbearing. Had it been any other type of peppers I cant help but think it would have been pretty damn epic. There was a definite surprise saltiness which came from the Serrano Ham which worked really well and added to the meaty-ness of the Tuna. I'd never cooked Tuna fillet before and it was insanely quick and really fun. Overall really tasty and deceptively quick. 

Taste :      4/5  

Stick To Red Peppers

Time  :      3.5/5   15 minutes
Visual :     4.5/5    Wow! Fresh!
Magic :     4/5      Kazam!