Polpette di Tonno | Tuna "Meatballs"

These two-bite tuna “meatballs” are stuffed with olives, breaded and fried. Their flavor reminds me of olive Ascololane, the famous meat-stuffed olives of Ascoli Piceno (by the way, you can find a recipe for those in my book Big Night In).

I started with this recipe that I found online and made some changes, adding more seasoning and stuffing each tuna ball with a pimento-stuffed green olive. The original recipe calls for rolling the polpette in bread crumbs and then baking them, but I went old school and fried them instead. They were surprisingly light, maybe because they weren't dredged in flour and egg before being coated with bread crumbs. Even without that extra armor, they held their shape nicely during frying.

We enjoyed the polpette for dinner, with salad on the side. But they would make a great appetizer. You could also treat them like meatballs and simmer them in tomato sauce. Just be sure to use good quality Italian tuna packed in olive oil, and good Spanish Manzanilla olives. As you know, in Italian cooking quality makes all the difference.

POLPETTE DI TONNO
Makes 20 to 24 polpette

Ingredients
1 baking potato, scrubbed
1 slice sturdy white bread, crusts removed
3 tablespoons milk
2 (7-ounce) cans good quality tuna in olive oil, drained
1 egg, lightly beaten
3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh flat-leaf parsley
Salt and freshly ground black pepper to taste
20 to 24 pimiento-stuffed Manzanilla olives
Dried bread crumbs for dredging
Sunflower or vegetable oil for frying

Instructions
1. Cut the potato in half and put it in a pot of cold water to cover by 2 inches. Salt the water generously and bring to a boil over high heat. Simmer until the potato is completely tender, 20 to 30 minutes. Drain and let cool. Peel and mash the potato and set it aside to cool.

2. Tear up the piece of bread and put it in a small bowl with the milk.

3. Place the tuna in a bowl and crumble it with your fingers until it is completely broken up into small flakes. Squeeze the milk from the bread and add the bread to the tuna. Add the cooled mashed potato, egg, and parsley. Season the mixture with salt and pepper (I used homemade celery salt).

4. With a small scoop or spoon, scoop out some of the mixture to make a golf-ball size ball. Flatten the ball and press an olive into the center. Reform the ball around the olive, making sure the olive is completely concealed in the center. Roll the ball in bread crumbs and set it on a plate. Continue until you have used up all the mixture. You should end up with 20 to 24 tuna polpette. (You can go classic here by first dredging the polpette in flour, beaten egg, and then bread crumbs, but I like the lighter version using only bread crumbs as a coating.)

5. Heat 2 to 3 inches of oil in a medium heavy-bottomed pot over medium-high heat until it shimmers (or until it registers 375F on an instant-read thermometer). Fry the polpette, a few at a time, until they are golden-brown. This will take only a minute or two. With a slotted spoon or skimmer, transfer the polpette to a paper towel-lined plate. Serve hot or at room temperature.