At Elena restaurant in Montreal, co-owners Janice Tiefenbach and Stephanie Mercier-Voyer are always looking for ways to be creative with famous Italian dishes.”We basically do a little twist on the classics and put the vegetable in the foreground to be the star of the dish,” explains Tiefenbach. That’s exactly what happened with this tomato tonnato recipe, a take on the Piedmontese dish known as vitello tonnato (cold, sliced veal served with a creamy anchovy-and-tuna sauce). A hit at the restaurant, the unique recipe made it into the Elena team’s cookbook, Salad Pizza Wine: And Many More Good Things from Elena.

The tonnato is the real star of this recipe: “I could put that sauce on anything,” says Tiefenbach. “In a sandwich, on toast, you could thin it out and use it as a salad dressing for more of a tossed salad. It’s delicious even on pasta, tossed with a bit of lemon juice – it would just be a really good pasta salad too. There’s really no limit. Anything you would put mayonnaise on – why not use tonnato sauce?”

Plates with tomatoes and tonnato sauce with drinks next to them

Tomato Tonnato

The Elena restaurant team from Montreal share their recipe for a take on vitello tonnato that swaps veal for beefsteak tomatoes.

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Course Appetizer, Salad, Side Dish

Cuisine Italian

Servings 4

Ingredients

Fried Capers

¾ cup vegetable oil
½ cup capers rinsed and patted dry

Tonnato

10 oil-packed anchovy fillets drained
5 egg yolks
1 clove garlic chopped
5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil divided
2 tbsp Dijon mustard
2 tbsp lemon juice
1 tbsp white wine divided
2 cans (each 160 g) oil-packed tuna drained
1 tbsp capers drained and rinsed
½ tsp salt
¼ tsp freshly ground pepper

Tomato Tonnato Salad

4 large heirloom tomatoes thinly sliced
1 lemon juiced
5 tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
generous pinch flaky sea salt
generous pinch freshly ground pepper
½ cup seasoned bread crumbs see note
2 tbsp finely chopped chives
1 cup Tonnato
dill flowers or sprigs

Instructions

Fried Capers

In frying pan, heat vegetable oil over medium-high heat until very hot. Add a single caper to pan; if it sizzles, the oil is ready. Add capers and fry, stirring until they resemble crystals (capers change colour and open during cooking) and reducing the heat to avoid burning, about 5 minutes. Transfer to a paper-towel-lined plate.

Tonnato

In blender, add anchovies, egg yolks, garlic, 2½ tbsp of the oil, Dijon mustard, lemon juice and 1½ tsp of the white wine; purée until smooth. Add tuna, capers, the remaining 2½ tbsp oil, the remaining 1½ tsp white wine, salt and pepper; purée until smooth.

Tomato Tonnato Salad

Arrange tomatoes on a large platter. Drizzle with lemon juice, olive oil, salt and pepper. Sprinkle with seasoned bread crumbs, chives and crispy capers. Top with a few dollops of tonnato and finish with dill flowers.

Notes

To make your own seasoned bread crumbs, remove crust from half a loaf of sourdough; cut into 1-inch cubes and toast in a 250°F oven until dry but not browned, about 1 hour. Pulse cooled bread in a food processor until crumbs form; scrape into a bowl and toss with ½ cup grated Parmesan, 1½ tsp garlic powder, ¾ tsp kosher salt and ¼ tsp freshly ground pepper. Makes about 2 cups.