Maltese Ftira with Olive Oil-Crushed Tomatoes, Tuna in Brine, Capers, Black Olives, Pickled Onions and Galletti

Make the tomato dressing: place the crushed tomatoes and their juices in a small bowl. Stir in the kunserva, olive oil, grated garlic, oregano, salt and pepper. Let stand 15 minutes — the kunserva blooms in the cool oil and the dressing turns a deep, brick red. This is the Maltese ġbejniet-stall trick that makes the ftira sing.

Ingredients

• For the ftira bread (1 large round, serves 4):
• 1 ready-baked Maltese ftira (large flat sourdough ring) — substitute a 30cm round of Italian pane di Altamura or a flatter sourdough boule, halved horizontally
• OR — for homemade ftira: 500g (3 1/3 cups) strong bread flour, 350ml (1 1/2 cups) warm water, 10g (2 tsp) sea salt, 5g (1 1/2 tsp) active dry yeast — mixed, slow-fermented 18 hours in the fridge, shaped into a 30cm ring with a hole in the middle and baked at 240°C for 18 minutes
• For the tomato dressing (kunserva base):
• 4 ripe plum or oxheart tomatoes, very ripe, crushed by hand into a small bowl with their juices
• 1 tbsp Maltese kunserva (sun-dried tomato paste) — substitute Italian double-concentrate tomato paste mixed with a pinch of brown sugar
• 3 tbsp Maltese or Sicilian extra-virgin olive oil
• 1 small clove garlic, finely grated
• 1 tsp dried wild Maltese oregano (riegnu) — substitute Sicilian oregano
• 1/2 tsp flaky sea salt
• Cracked black pepper
• For the fillings:
• 1 large can (200g / 7 oz) Sicilian or Maltese tuna in olive oil, drained but still glistening — substitute high-quality jarred ventresca tuna
• 1 tin (50g) anchovy fillets in olive oil, drained (optional but classic)
• 20 black Maltese olives, pitted and torn in half (substitute Kalamata)
• 2 tbsp tiny nonpareil capers, rinsed
• 1 small red onion, very thinly sliced and quick-pickled (toss with 1 tbsp white wine vinegar + pinch sugar for 10 min)
• 1 small cucumber, sliced into translucent rounds
• 1 small green pepper (bell pepper), sliced into thin rings
• Large handful fresh basil leaves
• Small handful flat-leaf parsley
• For serving:
• Crisp Maltese galletti (water-and-aniseed crackers) — substitute Sardinian carasau or any thin water cracker
• A wedge of mature Maltese ġbejna (sheep cheese), or aged pecorino
• Lemon wedges
• A glass of cold Maltese Cisk lager or chilled Girgentina white wine

Instructions

1. Make the tomato dressing: place the crushed tomatoes and their juices in a small bowl. Stir in the kunserva, olive oil, grated garlic, oregano, salt and pepper. Let stand 15 minutes — the kunserva blooms in the cool oil and the dressing turns a deep, brick red. This is the Maltese ġbejniet-stall trick that makes the ftira sing.
2. Toast the ftira (optional but recommended): if your ftira is more than a day old, split it horizontally with a serrated knife, brush both cut faces lightly with olive oil, and warm in a 180°C oven for 4-5 minutes until the surface is just crisp. If the bread is fresh-baked, skip toasting — the open crumb soaks the dressing better when soft.
3. Drench the bottom half with tomato dressing: place the ftira bottom on a board. Spoon the entire tomato dressing across the surface, scraping every last drop. Press lightly with the back of a spoon so the bread soaks the juices — the wet bottom is the soul of the ftira. Maltese cooks insist a ftira that doesn't drip down your forearm is not a ftira.
4. Layer the tuna: arrange the drained tuna in chunks across the wet tomato base, spreading edge to edge. Don't shred the tuna — keep the pieces bold so each bite has substance. If using anchovies, lay them in a starburst pattern over the tuna.
5. Add the olives and capers: scatter the torn black olives evenly across the tuna, then sprinkle the rinsed capers on top. Both bring the salty brine that makes the tomato dressing pop.
6. Layer the vegetables: arrange the pickled red onion slices, then the cucumber rounds, then the green pepper rings — overlapping like roof tiles. Maltese tradition is to layer raw vegetables generously — the bread structure can take it.
7. Add herbs: tear the basil leaves over the top and scatter the parsley. Drizzle with one more thread of olive oil and a final pinch of flaky salt.
8. Crown with the top half: place the ftira top over the filling and press down gently with both palms for about 30 seconds — this is the Maltese 'pressed sandwich' move that bonds the layers into one solid bite. Don't squash it flat — just compress until the bread snugs against the filling.
9. Rest 10 minutes: this is non-negotiable. The dressing migrates upward into the top bread, the cucumber sweats slightly into the tomato, and the whole ftira coalesces into something greater than its parts.
10. Cut into quarters: slice the entire ftira ring into 4 generous wedges using a long serrated knife in one smooth sawing motion. Serve each wedge with a few galletti crackers, a wedge of ġbejna cheese, lemon, and a cold Cisk beer or chilled glass of crisp Girgentina white wine from a small Maltese vineyard.
11. Eat with both hands and let the tomato juices run down your fingers — that is the correct Maltese way. The galletti are for scooping up the tomato-oil pool that forms on the plate.
12. Ftira is the iconic open-air lunch of Malta — celebrated in the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage list since 2020 as a defining national craft. The bread itself, baked in traditional wood-fired stone ovens in villages like Qormi (the historic baker town), is a flat sourdough ring with a hole punched through the middle — the hole was a practical 19th-century device so the bread could be hung from a wooden peg above the family table. The classic 'Maltese ploughman's lunch' assembly — kunserva, tinned tuna, olives, capers and basil — reflects centuries of trade between Malta, Sicily and North Africa, when shelf-stable preserved fish and tomato paste were the lifelines of an arid island with little fresh meat. The British colonial period (1814-1964) added tinned tuna in oil as the everyday convenience and made ftira the working-man's quayside lunch in Valletta and Mġarr harbour. Maltese families today still eat ftira at every Sunday Sant Filep ('feast of St Philip') picnic, and emigrants from Sliema to Sydney bake their grandmother's recipe to hold onto home.