About three years ago, with Euro-Toques we took a trip to what is probably the culinary capital of Europe, San Sebastian. It has such a good reputation as a food capital because it has more Michelin Stars per head of population than anyplace else.

We had three days of intense eating, wonderful fish particularly, in marvellous restaurants (and one huge feed of steak in a working mans club, which are a feature of life there, and one marvellous night of grazing on Pinchos, which are their version of Tapas) when it was decided to bring us to taste the local white wine, Chacolí, which is traditionally drunk extremely fresh and poured from a great height to maximise its slight petulance.
The tasting was in the vinyard and the kindly proprietor had provided big platters of bread and chunks of pink fish as soakage.
The wine was lovely, but the first person to taste the fish gave a little gasp and soon the whisper went around (we were all chefs) “taste the fish, it is delicious”
It was tuna like in appearance but the similarity stopped there, I have never tasted fish like it, there was no hint of that dryness you usually associate with large fish like Tuna, it was moist and chunky, firm but perfectly tender.
In no time the Irish chefs had scoffed the lot.
When we were asked for questions, inevitably, one of us asked us what was the fish.
Miffed at our concentration on the food, we were told it was Tuna, “the Ventresca, the belly”.
Before we left Spain I had discovered that Spaniards like to can the Ventresca and they produced little flat cans of this part of the Tuna which look like tins of Anchovies and are just as dear. I bought about a dozen and brought them home.
On every subsequent trip to Spain I have done the same, I was contemplating a Trip to Barcelona (it is only a few hours drive away) to do the same before I got back.

In Ireland we survive mostly on fish, we have a very good monger in Waterford and we buy fish at a good price from him (I did spent an enormous amount of money with him in the twenty five years I was working as a chef in Waterford)
It was rather shock, since we have moved into Languedoc, to find how expensive the fish is here, my suspicion is that most of their fish now has to be brought in from the Atlantic, the Mediterranean having been fished out.
Our estate agent had told us that there was one excellent fish shop in Beziers and one day last week we found it, noted its position and so found our way back to it yesterday.
It is a terrific fish shop, more of a fish market really.
Tanks of Lobster, Crab and Spider Crab, lashings of every sort of shellfish and then the sign over the big bloody signs of Tuna, Ventriche, on special offer.
Ventriche, Ventresca, it had to be the same. When I asked the lady produced a great dirty slab of what looked like pork belly. I had hit pay dirt.
The Tuna cost €18 a kilo, the Ventriche was €12, about what it cost for one of the tiny tins.
I bought a kilo, brought it home, smathered it in Olive Oil, salt and pepper, squeezed a lemon over it and roasted it in the little Moulinex for about 30 mts at 220C.
It turned out even better than the Tuna we are with the Chacolí, and went down excellently with some icy cold chardonnay from Cornhellion, our next-door village.

I think we have found our signature fish dish for the table d’hôte.