Tarta de Atún (Tuna Tart)

Tarta de Atún (Tuna Tart)

The Recipe

Tuna Tart slice on place

Tuna Tart

A great recipe for when you have extra hardboiled eggs around the house (easter?). Adapted for the British/American kitchen from the Morfi Todos a La Mesa cookbook, from Rodrigo Cascón's "Cocina Express" section of the book. I don't move fast enough to call this a "quick" recipe but it's quickly becoming a family favourite. You can work ahead to make it a quicker dinner by stopping after the sauté step, cooling it a little, then mixing in the cheese, and putting the filling in the fridge overnight, then when ready for dinner, mix in the raw egg, assemble the tart and bung it in the oven.
Course Main Course
Cuisine Argentinan, Spanish
Servings 6 servings (maybe more)

Equipment

  • 25cm tart tin

Ingredients
  

  • 1 500g ready made shortcrust dough
  • 2 Tbsp olive oil (amount needed to sauté)
  • 1 medium onion diced
  • 2 green onions sliced thinly (can substitute with a small shallot)
  • 2 cloves garlic minced
  • 1 small red pepper diced
  • 80-100 g green olives rough chop
  • 4 roma tomatoes seeded and diced (skinned if you like!)
  • 2 160g cans tuna drained (drained weight printed on the can: 120g)
  • salt and pepper to taste
  • t tsp pimenton to taste sweet or smoky
  • 1 tsp ají molido to taste – can substitute wih crushed red pepper but it is spicier so do so carefully.
  • 3 eggs hard boiled roughly chopped (I've popped the details on how to hard boil an egg in the notes cos I always forget)
  • 1 egg raw
  • butter to grease tart tin as much as is needed
  • 100 g cream cheese
  • 200 g shredded mozzarella
  • ½ Tbsp milk

Instructions
 

  • Set the short crust dough out on the counter to warm up to room temperature while you prep the filling.

At any point in this process, go ahead and hard boil eggs, unless it's just after easter and you have a fridge full of them.

  • Place 3 eggs in the bottom of a medium sauce pan, cover generously with cold water (try for an extra inch of water) and put it on high heat until the water comes to a boil. Cover the pot, remove it from the heat and set aa timer for 10 minutes. Put the eggs in cold water/an ice bath when time is up for about 5 minutes and peel.

For the rest of the filling:

  • In a large skillet or sauté pan heat up the olive oil over medium high heat, add the onions first and shortly after the green onions (if using a shallot, then I add it and the onion together) once the onions are going translucent, add the garlic.
  • When the garlic is fragrant add the red pepper and let it cook for 2-3 minutes until it's starting to soften up.
  • Stir in the tomatoes, olives, and tuna, salt and pepper to taste.
  • Bit by bit stir in the pimenton and ají molido – I use sweet or smoky pimenton and typically, for our family 1 tsp each gives it a good flavour and isn't seen as spicy. If you're using crushed red pepper instead of ají molido, tread lightly there as it is spicier than ají molido. Sauté for a few more minutes.
  • Take the tuna mixture off the heat and set it aside to cool in the pan.

Prep the tart tin and crust

  • Preheat the oven to 180° C Fan/ 200° C / 400° F.
  • Butter and flour your tart tin.
  • Split the short crust dough into two hunks weighing 300g and 200g each.
  • On a lightly floured work surface, with a floured rolling pin, working around different angles, roll out the 300g portion as circular as possible, but don't be too fussy about it.
  • Carefully roll the dough back it over the rolling pin and centering it over the tin, unroll it into place. Work the dough into the corners and any fluted edges with your fingers. It should completely line the tart tin with excess sticking up over the edge.
  • Roll the second portion as circular as possible, and cut a vent hole in the center (I use a 1" cookie cuter, I have a ton in different shapes, sometimes I use a straw and cut a bunch of smaller holes.)

Finish up the filling and fill the tart tin

  • Mix the cream cheese and 100g of the shredded mozzarella cheese into the filling. Gently fold in the chopped hard boiled eggs.
  • If you're working ahead to bake tomorrow, this is where I'd pack the filling up and put it in the fridge.
  • Whisk the raw egg, reserve ½ Tbsp of it in a small bowl, and mix the rest into the filling.
  • Spoon the filling into the tart tin, level it out, and cover with the remaining 100g of shredded mozzarella cheese.
  • Carefully move the second disk of dough to cover the tart, it's smart to place it so there's extra in parts where the bottom might not have quite as much. Seal the edges, I do a fold around the edge similar to cornish pasties and classic empanada rope repulgue. It's hard to put it into words, but start by pinching the top and bottom layers together and folding them in, towards the centre of the pie. Start the next by pinching at the end of the first fold and folding the dough over, pressing it into the tail of that first fold. Work your way all the way around the tart tin like this.
  • Whisk ½ Tbsp milk into the whisked egg and brush over the top of the pie.
  • Pop it in the oven for 25-35 minutes until the crust is golden brown and my sad repulgue job puffs up and looks half decent.

Notes

  • Hard boiling the eggs – I’ve done this at varying stages depending on how much commotion is in the room while I’m cooking and what I’ve remembered to do when. It works great to do it while sautéing the main filling, I’ve also had them hard boiling while I was rolling out the dough. I wouldn’t do it later than that or you’ll be wasting time waiting for eggs to cook.
  • Reminder: Quick Hardboiled Eggs
    • Put the egg in a small sauce pan and cover by an extra inch with cold water. On high heat, bring the water to a boil. Once it’s boiling, remove the pan from the stove, cover it and let stand for 10 minutes. While it’s cooking, set up a small bowl with ice water, once the 10 minutes is up, move the egg over to the ice water for 5 more minutes. Peel the egg, discard the white (or use it for something else) and push the yolk through a fine strainer into small bowl.
  • I’m thinking about using a tin of tomatoes some time – well drained, I just can’t really be bothered to skin the tomatoes, and I wouldn’t mind a little more tomato in the finished tart.
  • I’ll get photos of me doing the repulgue and add them to this next time I make it. 
Keyword seafood, tart, tarta, tuna

The Waffle

I got the cookbook hoping a frankly insane sounding cake that requires 1kg of dulce de leche would be in there, also, I was after Santiago Giorgini empanada dough recipe – on the YouTube clips, he breezes through it so fast, I literally got details from this clip and that clip and another and almost had the whole recipe down.

Flipping through the book, this caught my eye. Our little one loves a tuna melt, and she loves an empanada, when I explained this was basically a cheesy empanada española, she was in.

A friend loaned us a tart tin (we’ve had to temporarily move out of our flat for renovations and half our kitchen is in storage) and it’s become a bit of a joke to now pronounce “tart tin” like “Tarte Tatin” a bit french, but dropping the end of “tarte” more like “tar-tahn” a bit like saying Jacques Pépin’s last name. To the point where I’ve typed “tart tan” twice writing this. Around the second time I made it, it was decided we needed to buy a tar’tan or never give the loaned one back.