We eat a fair amount of fresh fish in my house as part of a balanced and healthy diet. I have to do something to counter all those cheeseburgers and not so healthy stuff I crave. One of my favorite types of fish to work with is Tuna. Tuna can take many forms. Canned, fresh cooked, fresh raw, dried, there are as many ways of presenting it as there are countries that consume it. Canning Tuna is a huge industry and Tuna Salad is an American lunch staple, but if you've ever seen a higher quality (usually European) canned Tuna with whole pieces of Tuna loin packed in Extra Virgin Olive Oil, it is a world apart from the common supermarket brands. Those are great in pasta dishes and as a cold appetizer. Then there is the dried Tuna loin that I saw as a common type of tapas in Spain. It is sliced very thin and served with beer because it tends to be a little salty. There is of course the raw form of sushi and sashimi. Unfortunately for me my wife does not enjoy raw fish as I do, so that is something I do on special occasions. More commonly though, I tend to work with fresh Tuna from my supermarket fish counter. It is usually the Yellowfin variety of fish and the loins are generally cut into steaks for grilling.
If I'm lucky and the seafood manager is adventurous, I'll see the less common Bigeye or Bluefin varieties which are richer in fat that is full of Omega 3 fatty acids and more importantly... flavor!
Cooking the fish itself is a whole other matter. When I am lucky enough to score Bluefin or Bigeye, I always go for the sear and slice. Put a skillet on the stovetop, open the windows, hit the exhaust fan, and blacken the outside leaving the inside still cool and rare. I pick out the thickest piece I can find, rub it with a little olive oil, season generously with salt and pepper or a Japanese pepper preparation called Shichimi Togarashi, and sear away. Serve it very simply with a little soy sauce and wasabi on the side and voila, you've got a great meal. More often though, the fish counter has Yellowfin Tuna that is already cut into steaks so I'll grill those and serve them with a simple sauce accompaniment like a Piperade.
Piperade is simply peppers sauteed in olive oil. I used some long Italian sweet peppers I grew this summer, and I also added some sweet onion and capers. This would serve as a condiment for the grilled steaks.
Now being in the midst of the fall/winter season, the opportunities to grill are a little less frequent. I find myself looking for different ways to present the same cut and cook indoors. Last week I decided to bake the Tuna steaks over shaved fresh fennel and potatoes and top it all with capers (again, we really like good capers!) and oil cured olives. I trimmed two small bulbs of fennel and a couple of Yukon Gold potatoes and shaved them thin on my Japanese mandolin. I tossed those with Extra Virgin Olive Oil and salt and pepper, and then laid them into a baking dish and popped them into a hot (425°F) oven. I let the vegetables pre-cook for a few minutes until they wilted and began to brown.
I oiled then seasoned the steaks, going light on the salt because of the salt content of the olives and capers. I placed them on top of the vegetables in the baking dish and put the dish back in the oven for approximately 12-15 minutes.
In keeping with the Italian feel of this dish, I cooked the fish well done, but still very moist. It is unusual to see fish like this very undercooked in Italy as I found out last May. This was a really tasty way to serve the Tuna steaks and I actually took the leftovers and made them into a pasta dish later in the week.
Pairing wines with these dishes I expect the knee-jerk reaction would be "fish ~ white wine", but because of the meaty nature of tuna I like to go with a lighter red like Pinot Noir or an under appreciated and much overlooked Italian red, Montepulciano D'Abruzzo. A recent addition to our shelves the Poggio Samael Montepulciano D'Abruzzo Anima 2009 caught my eye right away with it's very front label.
When I turned the bottle around and saw that it was imported by Vine Street Importers I didn't hesitate to buy it. Vine Street imports many very good wines and I know them for their Australian portfolio. One of my favorite buying strategies is "Don't know the label? Know the importer!"
I'll continue to play around with different recipes for Tuna and hopefully this will inspire someone else to as well. After all, it is not just about the can. Sorry Charlie.
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