Chef Juliette
Butters and Creams
Beurres et crèmes d’hors-d’œuvre prove that cold-table finesse is mostly timing: smooth good dairy, cover it closely, hold it cool, then season only as you dish so every spoonful keeps a clean edge.
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Tunny Cream
Created by Chef Juliette
Oil-packed tuna, soft butter, and whisked cream become a cool, silken hors d'oeuvre for toast. Crème de thon teaches the cold emulsion: match temperatures, pound finely, then fold gently.
Appetizers & Snacks
French
Make Ahead
Dinner Party
25 min
Active Time
0 min cook•2 hr 10 min total
YieldAbout 1 cup (6 appetizer servings)
Crème de thon (tunny cream) teaches the cold emulsion in its smallest, clearest form. Before you touch a pan, know the one thing that decides it: the butter must be thoroughly soft but never melted, because it binds the pounded fish now and firms the spread when it chills. Cold butter leaves specks; melted butter makes a greasy cream. We don't apologize for butter, but we do respect its temperature.
The brigade kitchen assumed a commis at a heavy mortar, a fine tamis (drum sieve), and the companion smoked-salmon formula close at hand. Your honest equivalents are a mini processor, a fine-mesh sieve, and the finish written plainly into the method. The source's four ounces of tunny already make the right small bowl for six, so it needs no false enlargement. Only the tools and the cross-referenced finish are made explicit. One cook, one stove, one evening, though this time the stove may keep quiet.
Pounding and sieving are the dish; elaborate piping and molded buffet shapes are brigade scaffolding and can go. Work the softened butter completely into the smooth tuna paste before the whisked cream enters. Get that emulsion right, and everything afterward is gentle folding and a rest in the cold.
Crème de thon belongs to the Parisian classical repertoire of cold hors d'oeuvres, where the garde-manger, the cold-kitchen station, turned preserved fish into smooth creams for toast, small pastry cases, and buffet dishes. Its method traveled easily to the home apéritif because tunny in oil keeps well and the preparation asks for no cooking, only pounding, sieving, and chilling. Tunny is the English name used in the source for tuna, and the butter-and-cream finish marks this as a classical French fish cream, not a Provençal olive-oil spread.
The technique, the tradition, and the story behind every dish.
Discover Culinary ExplorerIngredients
oil-packed tunny or tuna
Quantity
½ cup packed (4 oz / 113 g)
drained but not pressed dry
unsalted butter
Quantity
¼ cup (2 oz / 57 g)
thoroughly softened but not melted
heavy cream
Quantity
2 tablespoons (30 ml / 30 g)
very cold
thin baguette toasts (optional)
Quantity
16
for serving
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| oil-packed tunny or tunadrained but not pressed dry | ½ cup packed (4 oz / 113 g) |
| unsalted butterthoroughly softened but not melted | ¼ cup (2 oz / 57 g) |
| heavy creamvery cold | 2 tablespoons (30 ml / 30 g) |
| thin baguette toasts (optional)for serving | 16 |
Equipment Needed
- •1 to 2 cup mini food processor or heavy mortar
- •6-inch fine-mesh sieve
- •Firm flexible scraper
- •Small balloon whisk and 1-cup chilled bowl
- •1-cup shallow serving crock
Instructions
- 1
Set the temperatures
About 45 minutes before mixing, set the butter in a medium bowl. It is ready when a spatula passes through without resistance and the surface remains matte, not shiny or liquid. Keep the cream cold. Drain the tunny for 10 minutes, then blot away loose surface oil without squeezing the fish dry; the oil held inside belongs to the ingredient, but a puddle would fight the butter.
- 2
Whisk the cream
Whisk the cold cream in a small chilled bowl until it thickens and holds a soft peak whose tip folds over. Stop there. Stiffly whipped cream is difficult to incorporate and leaves the finished crème de thon coarse rather than silken. Return it to the cold while you prepare the fish.
- 3
Pound and sieve
Process the drained tunny for 1 minute, scrape down the bowl, then process again until it becomes a close, uniform paste with no distinct flakes. Press it firmly through the fine-mesh sieve with a flexible scraper. The processor replaces the mortar, and the sieve replaces the tamis; both jobs matter. Stop after the processor and you have pleasant tuna rillettes, but not crème de thon.
Work the paste across the sieve in small portions, then scrape the smooth purée from underneath. A broad, firm scraper makes quicker work of it than a spoon. - 4
Build the emulsion
Beat the softened butter until it looks like thick cream, then work in the sieved tunny a spoonful at a time. Beat each addition completely smooth before adding the next. If hard butter beads appear, wrap the outside of the bowl in a warm, damp towel for 10 seconds and beat again. If the mixture turns shiny and oily, chill it for 5 minutes, then resume beating. Ça se rattrape. The finished base should be cohesive, matte, and supple.
- 5
Fold in cream
Fold one-third of the whisked cream into the tunny mixture to loosen it, then add the remainder in two gentle additions. Turn the bowl and sweep the spatula from bottom to top until no white streaks remain. Do not whisk vigorously now; the cream is here to lighten the emulsion, not to be beaten out of it.
- 6
Chill and serve
Spoon the crème de thon loosely into a shallow crock, leaving natural ridges rather than piping it. Cover directly against the surface and chill for at least 1 hour, until the butter has given it a cool, spreadable body. Let it stand for 10 minutes before serving with thin baguette toasts. Set down the crock and let everyone help themselves. À table!
Chef Tips
- •Use solid tunny or tuna packed in oil, not water. The source's choice is structural as well as flavorful: water-packed fish makes a damp paste that resists the butter, while oil-packed fish pounds smooth and rich.
- •Butter, not margarine. The butter binds the fish when soft and sets the spread when cold; a substitute gives neither the same emulsion nor the same clean finish.
- •Don't skip the sieve if you want the classical texture. It removes the last resistant fibers and turns processed tuna into a true cream. Cooking well is not cooking fancy, but precision still counts.
- •Serve the crème de thon cool rather than refrigerator-hard. Ten minutes at room temperature restores its silken spread without letting the butter soften into oil.
Advance Preparation
- •Make the crème de thon up to 2 days ahead. Press reusable wrap or parchment directly against its surface, cover the crock, and keep it cold so it does not dry or absorb other flavors.
- •Remove it from the cold 10 to 15 minutes before serving. If it has set especially firm, give it two or three gentle turns with a spoon to restore its spreadable texture.
- •Do not freeze it. Freezing separates the cream and butter from the fish, leaving the mixture grainy when thawed.
Frequently Asked Questions
Nutrition Information
1 serving (about 33g)
Calories
120 calories
Total Fat
11 g
Saturated Fat
6 g
Trans Fat
0 g
Unsaturated Fat
4 g
Cholesterol
30 mg
Sodium
70 mg
Total Carbohydrates
0 g
Dietary Fiber
0 g
Sugars
0 g
Protein
5 g
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