How to cook the perfect tuna steak

by - April 19, 2016


Tuna steak is one of the most indulgent, satisfying and under-appreciated meats. It's remarkably simple to cook yet often gets ruined, causing tuna to be shunned. Here's how to fall in love with it all over again...




Are you a raw meat lover or hater? Do you need your steak 'well done' or are you wanting it still mooing?
Could you slice off a piece of raw tuna and just eat it or are you sure to follow the instructions on the packaging which tell you to absolutely obliterate it, to ensure that it's 'done'?
As with any meat that you CAN cook rare, you should. 


Can you eat fish from the supermarket raw though?

Yes - It's perfectly safe to eat raw tuna and salmon from the supermarket.
 I was asked this recently - and you do not have to go to a special place to source meat/fish that you're going to use to make sashimi. Just make sure you choose the freshest cuts - i.e. look on the packaging and choose the ones with the 'use by' dates that are as far in the future as possible. If it's going out of date tomorrow, for example, stay well away. It won't taste as good and there's a chance it could go bad very soon.

Ok, boring bit aside. Where were we? Oh yes. You want to bite straight into a cow, right? 

But seriously, people if you are cooking tuna until it is GREY all the way through, it will be dissapointing. It will be DRY. You may as well buy a tin of tuna. You know when you buy a tin of tuna you always have to mix it with some kind of sauce, like mayo, to make it more palatable? Because it's so damn DRY without?

The beauty of tuna steak is that it's raw, you have a license to NOT spoil it. To enhance it. To celebrate it! 
It's an amazing fish, it's SO delicious not to mention expensive that it really IS worth doing properly and at least TRYING with a little bit of pink in the middle. 

Do you think that maybe eating raw meat/fish would be tough or chewy? It's the opposite. It's waaaaaay more tender! You can cut through raw tuna steak easily with a normal knife. Give it a go. Even if you're not ready to eat it raw yet - just explore the texture and get comfortable with it - don't be scared is what I'm trying to say. 

The best way to eat totally raw tuna is, of course, with wasabe but that's a whole other blog post ;)

For the above picture, and you don't have to have it THAT pink just yet, but promise me you will leave a tiny bit of pink in the middle for succulence? 

Ok for the above picture I just covered the fish in olive oil and salt and pepper and then placed onto a HOT frying pan for about 2 minutes either side. Bearing in mind this is a MASSIVELY thick steak from Waitrose that cost about £6! (thanks Dave!) 

If you're buying pre-packed steaks they'll be thinner and so try doing it for a minute on each side. 


Serve it up with some green leaves dressed in olive oil, lemon and balsamic and some mushrooms fried in butter and black pepper to complete the picture!

Let me know how you get on and what YOUR thoughts on raw steak/tuna are in the comments below.
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