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A good salad is always a yes for any meal. Moreover, if the raw material is of excellent quality, even more so. Therefore, any innovative proposal for this type of dishes, for Tapas will always be a yes. And this is the case of this creation by chef Hugo Muñoz, from the restaurant Ugo Chan, our T de Oro in Madrid in 2022. It is a ventresca salad, but original and very good looking.
On this occasion, the chef uses hanging tomatoes, whose usual season is summer, but, as they are hung at the end of the summer and because they are in cool places, they last until spring. This type of tomato is usually used for the traditional Catalan pantumaca. As Hugo emphasizes, its flavor is “tremendously sweet”.
Another highlight of Ugo Chan’s dish is that it does not have tuna belly, but rather a bull tartar, to which they add a very subtle broth that has been lightly pickled with rice vinegar, which is the seasoning for the dish.
To finish it off, they use another part of the tuna, the botarga, to act as salt. The best botarga in the world comes from a small village in northern Sicily, the female tuna weighs more than 250 kg and its roe is cured for 18 months. Its flavor is reminiscent of anchovies, as Muñoz explains. Grate some bottarga over the tomato to finish the recipe.
So if you want to see what this ventresca salad tastes like, just make a reservation at Ugo Chan and enjoy it with your own palate.