About
Ventresca is the belly cut, fattier and softer than a plain tuna fillet, so it comes out of the tin creamy rather than flaky. José Gourmet cooks the fish before it is packed, then leaves it to mature in olive oil. This is one of the tins worth eating on its own.
The tuna comes from Atlantic stocks off the Portuguese coast. The cut is the belly, the fattest and softest muscle on the fish. It is cooked before canning in the traditional Portuguese way. Then it goes into olive oil pressed from Portuguese trees and matures inside the tin.
José Gourmet was started in 2008 by Luís Mendonça and Adriano Ribeiro. They began with cheese and moved to conservas, and Mendonça brought in twelve Portuguese children's illustrators to draw the wrappers. That list has grown to nearly ninety artists. André Letria drew this one, and the chef Luís Baena wrote the recipes printed with it.
Lift the fillets out whole and lay them on toasted bread with sliced tomato and a little of the tin oil. Baena also builds it into a puff pastry with confit cherry tomato. Cooking it hard wastes the cut.
Producer note
José Gourmet is a Lisbon brand that looks for the best of what Portugal already makes rather than making it itself. Its tuna belly is canned the old way, cooked first and then left to settle in the tin.
Pairs with