I borrowed the recipe from David Pasternack, who’s known for his his love of raw seafood, and in particular crudo, something I can share with him, although mostly only as a concept, but the title of the New York Times article where I found it is, ‘THE CHEF; I Like Tuna Cooked, Not Raw‘.

So our tuna belly was cooked that Saturday, although it arrived home beautifully crude.

I pretty much went with the Esca chef’s formula, except for the overnight marinating, and a few substitutions that were necessary because I didn’t have an ingredient he had specified.

• the sources of the ingredients I did use were 15 ounces of tuna belly (ventresca), which I believe was albacore, or longfin tuna, from P.E. & D.D. Seafood; the fisherman Phil Karlin’s own sea salt; freshly ground black pepper; one large clove of garlic from Norwich Meadows Farm, smashed; a little more than half of a cup of olive oil; 2 sprigs of thyme from West Side Market (‘Uncle Vinny’s’); one ‘Uncle Vinny’s’ bay leaf, possibly Columbian in origin, also rom Westside Market; 2 large salted and well rinsed Sicilian anchovies from Bon Italia; 8 ounces of LaRatte fingerlings from Norwich Meadows Farm; some genuinely wild native cress from Lani’s Farm; 1 very small red onion, sliced paper thin; one fourth of a cup of parsley leaves from Phillips Farms; 2 tablespoons of lovage; and 2 tablespoons of Sardinian red wine vinegar
• the wine was an Italian (Piedmont) white, Ferrando, Cariola Erbaluce di Caluso 2016, from Flatiron Wines 
• the ocean music [“The flavour of the sea pervades the three recent compositions heard here…” – from the program notes] was an album of music by the St. Petersburg composer Victor Kassine, ‘Between Two Waves’, with performances by Gidon Kremer and the musicians of Kremerata Baltica