Wednesday, June 28, 2017

It's Tuna Time. With A Southwestern Twist.


Rosie loves her tuna.
Today, it's seared tuna fillets with a corn and black bean salad.
I'm going with southwestern flavors in both the tuna and the salad
and all the flavors are co-mingling delightfully.

 Yes, indeedy!

First, I started on the corn and bean salad.
Corn and Bean Salad
1 cup cooked rice
1 cup cooked black beans
1 ear of corn
1 small onion, chopped
1 small pepper chopped
1 large Roma tomato, peeled, seeded, juiced, and chopped
pinch sugar
kosher salt
freshly ground pepper
1/2 tsp cumin 
1/2 tsp chili powder
lime juice

Scrape the kernels off the ear of corn and sauté in a tablespoon or so of unsalted butter with a pinch of sugar until lightly browned.  Add in rice, beans, onion, peppers, and tomato and heat through.  Season with salt, pepper, cumin, chili, and lime to taste.


Next, my tuna fillets.
For the tuna steaks, I made a nice coating of:
zest and juice of 1 lime
1 crushed garlic clove
freshly ground pepper
1 TB dried whole coriander seeds
AND, my secret ingredient ...
1 TB fresh, raw coriander seeds which are the seeds of my cilantro plants

If you don't grow cilantro, you need to.
The raw seeds are a quite pleasant surprise - cilantro-y and citrusy.

Grind up the dried coriander seeds a bit, leave the raw ones whole, and mix everything together.

Coat the tuna steaks in the ... coating, pressing in the seasonings.

Just rub it in.  And let the steaks sit in the lime juice, saving the juice for later.

I heated my cast iron skillet to 350° and added in a tablespoon each of unsalted butter and peanut oil.
Place the tuna steaks in the hot pan and sear.  1½ - 2 minutes each side for rare. 3-4 minutes for medium to overdone.  The nice thing about tuna is that it's a very flaky fish.  You can take a fork and separate the meat to check the rareness or doneness.  When the tuna is to your liking, remove to a plate and pour the lime juice left in the coating mixture into the pan along with a pat of butter.  Stir until butter melts, scraping up any goodie bits in the pan.  Pour over tuna steaks and serve.






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