Last winter during a short visit to New York, I discovered another example of the marvels of food and beverages from the Basque regions in Europe.  The restaurant is named Txikito.  It’s a small place in Chelsea, and the food is amazing.  The chef, Alexandra Raij, is a young woman who grew up in Minneapolis in a family of Argentine Jews.  Her husband and co-chef, Eder Montero, is Basque from Spain, and the culinary world is far better from this pairing.

I bought Alexandra’s book the night I was in the restaurant.  Tonight I finally made the first dish from it, and the results were wonderful.

The first step was to roast (really char) a whole eggplant.   I did this on the gas grill, and it did a very good job.  After removing the skin, I let the eggplant cool.  After draining it well to remove bitter juices, I was left with tender pulp, which I could use for this and other dishes.

Three other key ingredients were needed:

• high quality canned tuna fillets
• sweet onions to be lightly pickled
• plum tomatoes to be grated

Idylwilde Farms provided the last two items, and I had a tin of very good Spanish Ventresca tuna fillets in the pantry.  Here’s how it went together.  A Spanish white from Eileen at Social Wines was a good accompaniment.

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1. Grated plum tomatoes | 2. Add roasted eggplant puree | 3. Add canned tuna fillets | 4. Top with pickled sweet onions |