Rosie Makes Marinated Tuna.

 

 I recently posted about tuna steaks - perfectly seared and served either with a gremolata or a strawberry/kiwi salsa.  Once I get started on tuna, there's no stopping me.  Today, it's going to be marinated tuna.  The marinade is an orange and soy sauce concoction which is then cooked down to reduce it and concentrate those flavors.  The resultant sauce is enhanced and enriched with butter, giving it a luscious finish.  

First, searing the tuna:

   Get out your cast iron skillet.  Heat it up between 375° and 400°, film it with some peanut oil (high smoke point), drop in a chunk of unsalted butter, and when the butter gets all bubbly, gently place your tuna steak in.  Cook 2 – 2 ½ minutes on the first side.  Turn it over and go about another two minutes on the flip side.  Remove from pan and plate, else it keeps on cooking.  Depending on the thickness of your steak and how hot your pan is (Get an instant-read laser thermometer.), you'll have a rare to medium-rare tuna steak.  If you want more of a blackened steak, crank up the heat (425° - 450°) and cut back the time (1½ - 2 minutes first side, 1 - 1½ on the flip).  These times are suggestions for starting points.  Practice and you’ll get the hang of it and be able to cook your steaks rare to medium-rare, however you like.  I do recommend that thermometer though.

 

 For the marinade:  

Zest of 1 orange

Juice of one orange (½ cup juice)

⅓ cup red wine vinegar

¼ cup soy sauce

2 1-inch cubes ginger, juiced and pulped

1 tsp red pepper flakes

Combine all ingredients.

Now, about that ginger juice.  When I buy ginger, I slice the roots into 1-inch cubes and freeze them so I'll always have ginger on hand.  When I'm ready to use the ginger, I pull out the cubes, peel them, then nuke for about 15 seconds.  You can easily squeeze out the juice now by hand, or you can use a garlic press, scraping some of the pulp to use also.

Let tuna fillets marinate for an hour.  Remove from marinade and shake off excess.

Sear tuna according to above directions.  Remove from pan.

Lower heat and pour in marinade.  Let simmer and reduce a bit.  Finish off the sauce by swirling in a tablespoon or two of cold, unsalted butter, cut into small pieces.  This is to enrich, thicken, and give the sauce a nice glossy sheen.  When adding butter to a sauce, have the pan off your burner or over very low heat.  Add the butter gradually and whisk constantly.  Boiling or rapid simmering can cause the sauce to separate and break up.  To achieve that velvety consistency of an emulsion, incorporate the butter over low heat (or off heat) just enough to melt and thicken, but not hot enough to break and melt into oily puddles.

 

After searing the tuna, I poured in the marinade and brought it to a boil.

Reduce heat to low or remove from heat before adding the butter.

 

Stir in a tablespoon of butter

at a time.

About 3 TB butter total.

 

Whisk/stir until butter is incorporated and sauce has a nice gloss to it.

To serve, I pooled a little of the reduced sauce on the plate,

added an orange slice, then placed the tuna on top.

Pour more sauce over tuna and add some chopped scallions. 

To get those green onion curls, thinly slice the onions and place in ice water.

They'll curl right up.

 

  

 

Enjoy!