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Rocco: Hey everybody, I'm Rocco Dispirito.
In my new book, "Now Eat This! Italian",
I make our favorite Italian American classics all under 350 calories
and I came to Italy to learn the original techniques
from the very best cooks in the world, Italian mamas.
Here's how I did it.
Hey everybody, we're here at Il Sorgente in Sorrento.
It's a place famous for making mozzarella
but they're going to make tuna crudo with us today.
Marghertia Ferraro who is turning 93 and Rosella Miccio.
So what kind of fish do we have here today?
(In Italian) Is it local tuna?
Rosella: (In Italian) It's a local tuna called palamito.
Rocco: Palamito, cool, looks very fresh, looks very delicious.
(In Italian) How do you make tuna crudo?
So it's cut real thin.
Rosella: (In Italian) We pre-sliced some.
Now grandma, how do we season this?
Marghertia: (In Italian) With salt.
Rocco: Salt.
So the reason everyone in Italy is such a good cook
is because they learn from their grandmother
who learned from their grandmother and their mother and their mother before them
and before you know you have 5, 600 years of cooking tradition.
So this is vinegar?
Marhertia: Local lemons.
Rocco: They're sweet a dulce, no?
Rosella: Si.
Marghertia: (In Italian) And oranges.
Rocco: That's an incredible flavor.
It's like I've never had an orange in my life before.
I don't know where I've been.
Frankly, I could eat it just like this.
Rosella and Marghertia say it should stay for 2 hours
marinating in this acidity.
It's only about 10 minutes but it's already starting to change color
because the protein is coagulating from the acidity so it's kind of cooking.
So this has been marinating for about 2 hours
and as you can see, it's completely cooked
by the acidity that came from the citrus.
(In Italian) Raw garlic?
Rosella: (In Italian) Fragrant.
Rocco: Yeah, very fragrant.
(In Italian) No kissing after this!
Pepperochino, (In Italian) is it very spicy?
Rosella: (In Italian) Yes, it's very hot.
Rocco: This is the picante stuff, the very hot stuff.
And fresh parsley.
Everything has big flavor here.
The parsley tastes like a hundred bunches of parsley compressed into one leaf.
The garlic has this incredible aroma and the pepperochino
has this really mineral-y, ash-y, earth-y quality, it's just incredible.
I don't want you to be on fire later.
Rosella: (In Italian) Good.
Rocco: Very delicious.
Rocco: Parsley, garlic, the flavors of southern Italy coming together
to make people like me very happy.
Rosella: (In Italian) Good.
Rocco: Okay, let me make mine now.
We're going to start mine with a little bit of olive oil,
goes on the bottom of the plate, I don't want the fish to stick.
I use a tablespoon only in the entire dish so it's just a few drops now.
The great thing about this dish is you can eat it completely raw
or you can let it sit and marinate, just like they did theirs.
So you if you're not cool with very raw fish you can cook it with the acid.
Now I use lemon juice, caper juice,
literally the liquid that comes in the jar of capers.
It's acidic, it tastes like capers, it's a great way to marinate the fish
and I use chopped cherry peppers, hot cherry peppers.
And it all goes together
with a tablespoon of olive oil to make a little marinade.
So take a look at that, it's got hot cherry peppers in it,
which are reminenscent of the pepperochino.
It's got citrus juice in it
and the vinegar is actually coming from a jar of capers.
Salt, of course.
(In Italian) Did you already season it?
Rosella: (In Italian) Yes.
Rocco: See, she got it right this time. (laughs)
And then I top it off with crispy capers, I call these fried capers
with quotes because they taste like fried capers but they're not.
(In Italian) Let's try all these.
They're capers, like fried capers.
But they're fried in a microwave.
What's cool about it is we got them very crispy without using a lick of oil.
That's the success of this dish.
(In Italian) Let's taste, I know it's a little raw for your tastes.
Rosella: (In Italian) It's okay.
Rocco: Mmm, really good.
Rosella: (In Italian) Good.
Rocco: Here's the really good news: the original version, absolutely delicious,
428 calories, 90 grams of fat.
But now with this version, 103 calories, 4 grams of fat
for a gigantic reduction, it's a quarter of the calories.
Now I know you want to eat this tuna crudo but now, eat this tuna crudo.
(In Italian) Which one do you like better?
Marghertia: (In Italian) His, I think.
Rocco: Aw! (laughs)
Grandma's always right.