The best tuna recipe ever

I know this is rather monochromatic, but it was delicious!

Cooking tuna can be daunting.  Most people like it rare but I'm not one of those people. I like mine cooked just over rare, meaning still a little pink inside. This takes some practice but it's not impossible, to be sure.  What I've figured out is that if the tuna is about 1- 1 1/2 inches thick, I cook it for 3 minutes on the first side and 2 minutes on the second.  There, that's it.  Now you have no reason to be afraid anymore. Go buy some tuna.

Now, if you want to have really spectacular, awesome, mind-blowing tuna, then here's what you need to do. I got this from the Internet, I think. This makes enough for the three of us.

1 Tbs white wine vinegar
1/2 cup white wine
2 Tbs minced shallot
1 1/2 tsp wasabi paste (don't let this spook you)
1 1/2 tsp soy sauce
1/2 cup butter, cut into cubes
1/2 cup chopped cilantro
3 6 oz tuna steaks, about 1" thick

Simmer the vinegar, wine & shallots over medium heat until it reduces to a couple of Tablespoons.  Strain out the shallots & return liquid to the saucepan.  Add the wasabi & soy sauce.  Over low heat, add the butter one cube at a time, whisking it to emulsify. DON'T LET IT BOIL. When all the butter is incorporated, remove from heat and set aside.

Meanwhile, rub olive oil on the tuna and season with salt & pepper. Heat skillet over medium-high heat.  Place fish in the hot skillet and sear 3 minutes on first side, then 2 minutes on the flip side.  Of course, adjust this time if you like yours more rare or more done, although I wouldn't recommend going more toward done.

Serve with the wasabi butter spooned over the fish. 

You may want to serve pasta, potatoes or rice with this because the butter sauce is so fantastic. Most recently, we had this with wild rice and roasted cauliflower.  This sauce is dangerous, folks. I mean, you might find yourself wanting to just eat it with a spoon. I think it would also be wonderful with salmon or chicken.  And don't let the wasabi scare you off.  As it cooks, it mellows and just imparts a cool flavor.  It is NOT spicy at all.  So please don't let that ingredient prevent you from trying this dish.  I promise you that you'll love it!

Would love to hear your comments below after you try it. If you don't love this dish then I'll tap dance down Main Street wearing a rainbow afro. That's how confident I am that you'll love it.  Bon Appetit!

Pacific Rim

I've told you guys before how easy it is for me to get burned out on chicken.  But, when you think about it, if you're a meat-eating person, it's hard to exist without chicken. Not only because it's so versatile, but because it's a very lean protein, which we all know is better for us than, oh let's say, fatty mutton from Kazakhstan. As a funny aside, I met a girl once who was performing an internship in Kazakstan...and she was a vegetarian.  It was a very long year in her life.

Back to chicken.  As much as I love it and appreciate it, I can become bored with it very easily.  This is one reason that I have a library of cookbooks to see me through these chick-a-bore times. Today, I hit one of those moments when I thought about dinner, pictured chicken and then nothing but static on the monitor. I went to the fridge and took inventory and came up with a stir-fry idea based on a recipe I've read about 401 times over the years. "Pacific Rim."

Topped off with some almonds and peanuts

 This was a lovely stir-fry consisting of carrots, red bell pepper, broccoli and chicken flavored with a sauce of soy sauce, basil, a little curry powder, corn starch, and chicken broth. I served it over rice stick noodles and a side of pea pods (snow peas). I altered the printed recipe a bit, based on what I had on hand. The result was quite nice.  I particularly liked the subtle combination of the basil with the curry and soy.  I also included a smidge of crushed red pepper (only a smidge because of the wunderkind).  It still may have been a bit on the spicy side for her tastes, but she ate her dinner without complaint.  Well, that's not completely true; she wasn't crazy about the rice sticks.  Those of you with kids know that if all they reject is noodles, you're doing something right!

 

Crazy Spaghetti Tip

This will be short and sweet.  

First, a little history.  When I was in elementary school, my mom and a bunch of other moms were in charge of a huge spaghetti supper at the school.  Our good friend Dupre owned a restaurant in Irmo at the time and he let them use the place during the day, while the restaurant was closed, to mix up all their sauce.  My memory (be warned...this is a kid's memory) was of buckets and buckets, like sheetrock mud buckets, just lined up everywhere.  They were making the sauce en masse, of course.  One lady's task was to add x-number of cups of Worchestershire sauce to each bucket.  She went into the kitchen, grabbed several bottles of that yummy black nectar and set out to get the job done.  

At about bucket # 20, someone looked at what she was doing.  She had grabbed a yummy black nectar, but a different one than intended.  Yes friends, she was adding soy sauce to the spaghetti sauce.  As you can imagine, all the  moms went bonkers, there were some meltdowns and I'm pretty sure some emphatic "dammits" and "shits."  But, finally the chaos subsided and someone, I'm going to assume it was the level headed Dottie Webber (my mom),  who said something like "Hey, it's done.  Keep adding soy to the rest of the sauce so it's consistent."

The secret weapon

Well, you know what?  That spaghetti supper at Dutch Fork Elementary back in the early 70's was a resounding success.  In fact, up until that time, I wasn't such a spaghetti fan.  But I became one that night.  I think it was the soy sauce.  No, I know it was.  Soy sauce is one of the most precious liquids on Earth, if you ask me.  

So, here's the message I wanted to impart to you all this evening.  When you have those quicky weeknight suppers of spaghetti sauce from a jar <<oh don't act like you don't use it from time to time!>>  add some soy sauce and little garlic powder.  It elevates jarred sauce tremendously.  In fact, my little diner dove into hers this evening and said, 

"Mommy, did you make this yourself?"  <<Okay, I told her yes.>>  Her response? "I love it!  Thank you so much!"  

Do I feel guilty about using a jarred sauce now and then?  Not with a compliment like that from the most important person on the planet!