Preserving the best-tasting tuna

IMPROBABLE AS it may have seemed a few years ago, canned tuna is one of the hottest ingredients around today. Good quality stuff, of course, not lunchbox fare. Imported from Spain or Italy, it can sell for as much as $50 a pound. And if it's ventresca, the richest meat from the belly of the tuna, prices can go even higher.

Paying that kind of money for canned tuna may be surprising, but what's downright shocking is how amazingly simple it is to make something quite like it at home.

Tuna prepared this way is somewhere between fresh and canned. Let's called it "conserved," to honor its inspiration, the old Italian tradition of preserving meat under olive oil, sometimes called conservata.

Especially now, when Southern California's summer albacore run is heating up and neighborhood fishermen are bringing home their catch, this is something you've just got to try.

Here's how you do it: Cut fresh tuna in big chunks and poach it in olive oil flavored with garlic and spices over very low heat just until the meat begins to flake -- about 15 minutes. Cool in the pan and then store, in the flavored olive oil, in the refrigerator.

The flavor is rich and pure without a trace of fishiness and the texture is downright meaty -- none of that mealiness you sometimes get with commercial stuff. And because you're controlling the process, you can flavor the oil any way you want, lending subtle hints you won't find in regular canned tuna.

You can use this conserved tuna in any way you'd use the best canned stuff: make a salad with potatoes and green beans as they do in southern France, or with white beans as they do in Spain. Mix it into a spicy fresh tomato sauce for pasta. Fold it into a caper-y mayonnaise. Stuff it into roasted red peppers. Or just top bruschetta with little chunks of it, being sure to spoon over some of that good olive oil.

About the only thing you can't do with this tuna is stick it in the pantry and forget about it. Because tuna and other meats are so low in the acidity that would prevent bacterial growth, they must be pressure-canned to be absolutely safe.

On the other hand, conserved tuna will last quite nicely in the refrigerator for a week or more. And this process is so easy you can make it with only a pound or two at a time. Once you taste it, there's no way that much will last that long.