Tomato and Tuna Tartare

This fresh dish is perfect for hot summers. Generally, this is served as a starter, but you can use it as a main course by increasing quantites and add some salad and feta cheese for example. No cooking necessary, which is always a plus!

You need

• Tomatoes
• Canned tuna (about half a medium-size can)
• Basil
• Olive oil
• Vegetable oil (I usually use sunflower oil, for its bland taste)
• Vinegar
• Salt and pepper
• Chives (can be optional if you don't like them, but they add a nice taste :))

Preparation

You need about 1.5 to 2 tomatoes per person, depending on the size of the tomatoes, how hungry people are, or if you’re serving the dish as a starter or main course. For a main course, I would use 4 tomatoes per person and use a full can of tuna for 2 people.

• Dice the tomatoes in small cubes, pour salt on them.
  

  Tip: put the tomato cubes in a strainer while you prepare the rest, so that the salt can do its work, i.e. get the excess of water out of the tomatoes.
• Put the tuna in a bowl and attack it with a fork so that the pieces of tuna are not distinguishable any more (see what I mean? You want one heap of tuna, not pieces).
• With a fork, mix some vegetable and olive oil with the tuna. Usually, I use a ratio of 2/3 of vegetable oil and 1/3 of olive oil, otherwise, the tuna will have a very strong olive and bitter taste. Adjust as you taste the mix, depending on your personal preference.
• Shred the basil leaves in small pieces and add them to the tuna mix. Add salt and pepper as well. Taste to see how you like it.
• Optional: add some chives cut in little pieces. Don’t put too much of them otherwise you will cancel out the basil taste.

When done, your tuna mix must not be dry and it should have a nice basil and olive oil taste, and a faint taste of chives if you chose this option.


Serving the dish

• Put the tomato pieces in a small round container (you can use a square one as well, round just looks better :)). The pieces need to be packed tight in the container.
• Take out the plates in which you’re going to serve the tartare.
• Place the plate upside down on top of the container with the tomatoes.
• Make the plate and the container do a 180° flip, the tomato pieces should fall on the plate in a nice round heap. Remove the plastic container.
• With a spoon, scoop some of the tuna mix and place it delicately on the tomato pieces.

A simpler way of presenting the dish is to use metal circles that will shape the tomatoes easily. But not everybody has metal circles in their kitchen (I sure don't! :))

For a nice finish, you can add some pepper again (to have some little decorative black dots) and plant a whole basil leaf on the tuna heap. You can add a few square of feta cheese as well, and one full chive.

Put the plates back in the fridge if need be, serve cold.

Alternatives

• Instead of using oil to mix the tuna, use Tartare cheese (Boursin would do as well, but I cannot guarantee it as I'm more familiar with Tartare cheese).
• You can also replace oil with Philadelphia cheese for a taste blander than with Tartare or Boursin. (Special thanks to Sarah who introducted me to the tuna/Philadelphia mix :))
• Do a three-layer dish: one layer of tomatoes, one layer of cheese (Tartare, Boursin or Philadelphia that you accomodated to your taste) and one layer of tuna.