Seared Wild Tuna Steak

When Liz and I first set out to build our food blog, we agreed that this couldn’t impact our family life negatively. This had to remain a fun, creative, and inspiring project. Don’t get us wrong, we knew it was going to be a lot of work but we didn’t want it to get in the way of family time or other activities we often like to do. Sure, we’ve had nights when we’re up a little late, and we’ve had the odd cold meal… when it takes a little while to get just the right shot, but for the most part, we’ve managed to stick to our goal.

This week was an exception to that. It was more difficult than usual. We have some stuff planned for the weekend, so I had proposed to Liz that we try to get in two shots during one evening. One would be the side dish and the other a protein of some sort. I think I may have underestimated the amount of work… a touch 🙂

The stars didn’t align, I ended up leaving my day job a little later than expected, I still had to pick up some ingredients for this dinner/blog post… oh, and did I mention, that outside of the dressing, I wasn’t even sure what that meal was going to be? I stopped at one of our local grocery stores on the way home. I picked up some ingredients for the balsamic vinegar and maple syrup salad dressing and then headed over to their meat counter. On the way there, I was fortunate enough to spot these amazing tuna steaks on sale. Sale… uh… this means that instead of being very very expensive, they were only very expensive 😉 I guess it’s the price we pay for quality fish when we live far from the ocean. They did look very fresh, so I didn’t mind so much. I was just happy I’d quickly found part two of the evening’s blog topic…oh, and dinner of course.

Man oh man did we do some running tonight (not the treadmill sort of running). It was a coordinated but hectic situation in our house; between cooking, helping our little guy with homework, helping the other with exam prep, taking two shots for the blog (and timing them well so that our expensive tuna didn’t go to waste), tidying up, and finally sitting down to eat; you’d have thought we really were in a race. Wouldn’t it be great if this kind of running around actually helped us lose some weight.

…ok now breathe…. and that’s when we realized that a two-blog-post night is more than we should tackle on a weeknight. See, we’re always learning. At least this lesson came with an amazing dinner.

A little note about the Tuna. In our home, we like our tuna a bit more done than you’d probably find it in a restaurant–where ‘perfectly done’ would be seared and medium-rare. But, Liz and I grew up with our fish cooked more well-done and our kids have gotten used to how I cook it. If you prefer it less ‘done’, take the tuna out of the pan about a minute sooner than we show in our recipe.

So the moral of today’s story… don’t take on more than you can chew (pardon the pun), but always eat well friends!

Seared Wild Tuna Steak

 

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Prep time

8 mins

Cook time

6 mins

Total time

14 mins

 

These quick and simple seared wild tuna steaks are so delicious. Fresh tuna steaks are in a league of their own and don't need complicated marinades or spices to taste wonderful.

Author: Nelson Cardoso

Recipe type: Main

Cuisine: Portuguese

Serves: 4 Steaks

Ingredients

• 1 tbs + 1 tbs vegetable oil
• 4 wild tuna steaks (approx. 2.2 lbs or 1 kg)
• 1½ tsp coarse salt
• ½ tsp freshly ground black pepper
• ½ lemon

Instructions

1. Remove the tuna steaks from the fridge about 20 minutes before you're ready to cook them.
2. Add one tablespoon of vegetable oil to a large pan and set the stove top heat to medium high.
3. Place the tuna steaks on a large cutting board.
4. Drizzle the oil over the steaks and use your hands to coat them on both side and the edges.
5. Crack ground black pepper over the steaks evenly.
6. Sprinkle the course salt evenly over the steaks.
7. Using your hands, gently pat down the salt and pepper into and around the tuna steaks to make sure they're all covered.
8. Swirl the oil around in the pan to cover the bottom.
9. Carefully pllace the tuna steaks on the hot pan to sear. Note that with the pan hot enough and the drizzle of oil, the steaks should not stick to the pan.
10. You should start to see the bottom of the steaks cook and loose their redness.
11. After about three minutes, turn the tuna steaks over. The top should be nicely seared.
12. Once again, the bottom of the steaks will start to loose their redness as it cooks.
13. You will see a line of red between the bottom and top of the steaks.
14. After about three minutes, remove the tuna steaks from the pan onto a serving dish.
15. Tent the steaks with aluminum foil for about 3 to 5 minutes.
16. Squirt the steaks with freshly squeezed lemon and serve hot with your favourite side.

Notes

We happen to like our tuna a little more well done than typically seen at restaurants and cooking shows. If you prefer your fish a little less done, cook the fish for 30 to 60 seconds less per side.

3.5.3208