Culinary Explorer
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Fagioli e Tonno alla Toscana
Created by Chef Graziella
The bean and tuna salad of Tuscany, where four ingredients become dinner. This is what Italian home cooks have made for generations when the pantry seems bare and the day is too warm for the stove.
Fagioli e tonno is proof that the Italian pantry can produce dinner when it seems there is nothing to cook. Beans from the cupboard. Tuna from the jar. An onion. Oil. That is all. What sounds like desperation is, when properly made, something people request.
The beans must be cannellini, the white kidney beans that Tuscans love so much that other Italians call them mangiafagioli, the bean eaters. The tuna must be Italian, packed in olive oil, not the watery stuff in cans. The onion must be sliced thin and handled correctly. The oil must be your best. There is nowhere to hide.
This is not a recipe that rewards additions. I have seen versions with capers, with olives, with tomatoes, with celery, with lemon, with herbs beyond a few parsley leaves. Every addition dilutes the purity of what you started with. The original three ingredients, dressed with oil and perhaps a touch of vinegar, need nothing else. What you keep out is as significant as what you put in.
Ingredients
cannellini beans
Quantity
2 cans (15 ounces each) or 3 cups home-cooked
drained and rinsed
Italian tuna packed in olive oil
Quantity
2 jars (7 ounces each)
red onion
Quantity
1 small
sliced paper thin
| Ingredient | Quantity |
|---|---|
| cannellini beansdrained and rinsed | 2 cans (15 ounces each) or 3 cups home-cooked |
| Italian tuna packed in olive oil | 2 jars (7 ounces each) |
| red onionsliced paper thin | 1 small |
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