First Meal of 2010: Pan Seared Tuna

Our first 2010 home-made meal was a lazy Saturday morning breakfast. Both Rosaria and I really enjoy eating fish in the morning. It was something I often had when I was kid down on Long Beach Island. This morning we had hand cut pieces of fresh tuna with a terrific Asian “sweet & sour” sauce. In fact, the whole reason for this breakfast, other than always taking pleasure in eating seafood, was the sauce. Yesterday, a beautiful large bunch of mint was still sitting in a bowl of water, as well as a good amount of papaya pieces in the fridge, both left over from our last 2009 dinner party a couple of days ago. So here’s what I did:

~ 1 large red bell pepper seeded & diced
~ 2 shallots peeled and diced
~ ½  head of garlic peeled and minced
~ 2” piece of ginger peeled and minced
~ 2 T canola oil or other neutral oil
~ 1 bunch of mint washed, stemmed
~ ¹⁄³ cup of rice wine vinegar
~ ¹⁄³ cup of white whine vinegar
~ ½ red wine vinegar
~ 1 ½ cup white wine
~ 2 T mirin
~ ¼ cup granulated sugar
~ 2 T of palm sugar (if you don’t have palm sugar, increase granulated sugar to 1/3 cup)
~ 2 T honey
~ 1 ½ tsp salt
~ 2 cups of papaya chunks

Heat up a large sauce pan and film it with the canola oil. When the oil is hot, but not smoking, add the shallots, garlic and ginger, immediately reducing heat to low. Cook until the shallots are translucent and the garlic is soft but not brown. Add the diced red pepper and increase the heat to medium. Cook for 3-4 minutes, stirring to keep everything from sticking and burning. Then add all the vinegars and sugars, the papaya, white wine, mirin, honey, salt, and mint. Stir everything together, lower the heat to low, and cover the sauce pan with a lid propped open with a wooden spoon.

After the sauce has cooked for about a half hour, the red pepper pieces should be tender. Remove the sauce pan from the heat and let it cool for several minutes. Once it’s cool enough to handle, put the contents in a food processor, or better, a blender and purée. The object is to get the red pepper, the papaya, and the mint, as well as everything else, as small and smooth as possible. Once puréed, pass everything through a fine mesh sieve. You should have about 2 ½ cups of sauce which can be used immediately, or refrigerated for a couple of days, or even frozen so it’s ready to use when you are.

Rosaria shaped and cooked the tuna this morning. Here’s what she did:

~ 2 tuna pieces, about 5″ x 2″ neatly trimmed into rectangular shapes (reserve the trimmings for salads or scrambled eggs)
~ 4 T cup roasted sesame seeds
~ 3 T fresh cracked black pepper
~ 2 T sesame oil
~ green seaweed salad
~ chopped chives for garnish

Pat dry the trimmed tuna pieces and roll them in the sesame seed/black-pepper combination, applying gentle pressure on each tuna side to coat well and firmly. Heat up the sesame oil in a sautée pan, add the tuna and pan sear over high heat, watching carefully, and rolling the tuna so each side cooks evenly to a darkish brown while the center of the tuna “log” remains red. This only takes a couple of minutes. When ready, transfer the tuna to a cutting board and slice evenly across the grain, using a well-sharpened, smooth blade knife. Meanwhile, warm the sauce and spoon several tablespoons onto a plate (either across the plate, or covering most of the bottom, depending on the shape of the dish and your “presentation” mood). Place the sliced tuna on the sauce and garnish with some seaweed salad and chives. Simply perfect for ringing in the new year. Everything else in 2010 should be this easy!

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